204 THE WOODLANDS. 



must have made bricks from the clay he dug out, and 

 with them built a wall along each side of the trenches 

 from two to three feet in height, and fourteen or fifteen 

 inches in thickness ; and, lastly, he must have gone 

 over the whole of his work again, and smoothed the 

 interior until it was exactly true, straight, and level. 

 All this work must also have been done without the 

 least assistance, and the ground must be supposed to 

 be filled with huge boulders, and covered with tree 

 trunks, broken logs, and other impediments. 



That ants are industrious, persevering, and ingenious 

 there can be no doubt, but the recent careful obser- 

 vations and experiments of Sir John Lubbock prove 

 that these traits have been overrated. He has shown 

 that they would not raise a mound of earth half an 

 inch to reach an object which they desired. That 

 they would take a long and circuitous route rather than 

 drop or leap the length of their own bodies ; that if a 

 straw were misplaced along which they had travelled 

 for food, they did not attempt to replace it ; that, in 

 fact, they did not in these things exhibit as much 

 intelligence as is shown by many other creatures. 



Franklin believed that ants could communicate 

 their thoughts or desires to one another, and confirmed 

 his opinion by experiment. In like manner Sir John 

 Lubbock has demonstrated that ants do communicate 

 with each other, that they recognize each other, and 

 their mystic signs consist in the rubbing together of 

 their antennae. He has shown that ants will return 

 to their nests and bring with them other ants to share 

 the food they have found, but that they were unable 

 to direct them, except by accompanying them ; that 



