208 LOCH CRERAN. 



owing to the myriads of ants traversing the path. On 

 Tuesday, however, we came upon a variation of this 

 spectacle, for these ants, wingless, busy, purpose-like as 

 they appeared, had given place to vast multitudes of 

 winged specimens, fushionless, helpless, purposeless, and 

 that seemed to flop about in the dazed fashion of young 

 birds too early driven from the nest. On examination 

 they were the well known winged ants of our boyhood 

 that we so well knew to be destitute of stings or power 

 of inflicting vengeance, and that came and went like a 

 visitation. They are the gentlemen ants, whose services 

 are no longer required by the community, with a sprink- 

 ling of pregnant females, not yet captured by the working 

 ants to continue the life of the ant hill. The males very 

 soon die, being as unfit to feed and support themselves 

 as they are unable to defend themselves ; and the females 

 soon rid themselves of their useless glittering appendages, 

 as a young mother throws aside her frippery and settles 

 down to maternal cares. The season seems to have been 

 most suitable for the propagation of the insect world, and, 

 certainly, if " every lad had his lass " among the ants, 

 there should be no lack of ant hillocks in the neighbour- 

 hood, nor need the barren workers have gone far to 

 secure the certainty of the continued existence of their 

 community. 



Scarcely have we left the bright winged insects behind 

 us when we come upon a prettily marked reptile basking 

 in the sun in the middle of the road, evidently enjoying 

 the change from a muggy vegetation to the dry and warm 

 dust of the highway. We soon secure the fine specimen 

 of a blind adder, the only snake-like reptile we have yet 

 found in Benderloch, despite the stories of "adders" 

 that, when investigated, generally prove to be examples 



