WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 25 



of sight, lost in the interior, slowly groping round 

 about within, and finally emerging in a glade, where 

 your walking-stick, carelessly thrown on the ground, 

 bends back the grass, and so throws open a lane to the 

 traveller. In a straight line the distance thus pain- 

 fully traversed may be ten or twelve inches ; cer- 

 tainly in getting over it the insect has covered not 

 less than three times as much, probably more now 

 up, now down, backwards and sideways, searching 

 out a passage. 



- As this process goes on from morn till night through 

 the long summer's day, some faint idea may be ob- 

 tained of the journeys thus performed, against diffi- 

 culties and obstacles before which the task of crossing 

 Africa from sea to sea is a trifle. How, for instance, 

 does the ant manage to keep a tolerably correct course, 

 steering straight despite the turns and labyrinthine 

 involutions of the path ? It is never possible to see 

 far in front half the time not twice its own length ; 

 often and often it is necessary to retrace the trail 

 and strike out a fresh one a step that would confuse 

 most persons even in an English wood with which 

 they were unacquainted. 



Yet, by some power of observation, perhaps superior 

 in this respect to the abilities of greater creatures, the 

 tiny thing guides its footsteps without faltering down 

 yonder to the nest in the hollow on the bank of the 

 ploughed field. I say by observation, and the exer- 

 cise of faculties resembling those of the mind, because 

 I have many times tried the supposed unerring instinct 



