120 OUT OF DOORS. 



taking hold of the end which seems to be the post of 

 honour. As long as the ground is tolerably even the 

 stick is dragged along without difficulty, and the fore- 

 man or 'ganger' cannot be distinguished from his 

 fellows save by his position at the end of the stick. 

 But when they get among broken ground, or if the 

 stick should perchance fall into a crevice and carry its 

 leaves with it, the ganger seldom touches the stick ex- 

 cept to pull it into the proper direction, but runs ahead 

 to reconnoitre the locality, then returns to the gang, 

 and is all life and animation. I have seen the clever 

 little creatures make a mistake, and get the stick into 

 a labyrinth of broken ferns and twigs, through which 

 they could by no means steer it, and then seen them 

 carefully return by the same path until they were clear 

 of the thicket, and choose another and a smoother road. 

 On one occasion I watched a gang of ants, six in 

 number, that had jammed their burden so tightly under 

 a fern stem that they could proceed no further. They 

 immediately tried to extricate it, but were checked by 

 an angular bend in the stick, which had hitched itself 

 under the fern, and prevented it from being moved in 

 either direction. Being curious to know how the ants 

 would surmount the difficulty, and rather fancying that 

 they would leave the stick and fetch another, I watched 

 them for nearly two hours. They evidently had no in- 

 tention of relinquishing their task ; and after a vast 

 amount of excitement, the ganger getting on the top 

 of the stick and down again fifty times, they hauled the 



