ANTS 3 



I had with me two attendants. I pointed to the 

 track, and inquired if any of the trees of the garden 

 had been lately felled and drawn away. The men 

 smiled, and informed me that the track was not that 

 of a tree, but was the foraging path of an ants' nest. 



I was at first incredulous. It seemed to me impos- 

 sible that such light, diminutive insects as ants could 

 have made so broad and smooth a track as this over 

 the rough, hard earth ; but I was presently convinced. 

 We followed the track ; it extended from the point 

 where I had noticed it for some sixty or seventy yards ; 

 then it abruptly terminated in the centre of what had 

 once been a flower-bed. At the point where the track 

 terminated the ground was slightly raised, something in 

 the form of a wide but very shallow inverted saucer. 



In this low mound I noticed that there were four 

 small holes. These holes, my attendants informed me, 

 were the entrances to the passages that led down to the 

 nest. A few ants only were about. The rest, my 

 attendants said, had retired below for the night ; but 

 in the morning, about sunrise, they would be out again 

 and in full activity. 



In India during the hot weather we all rise at earliest 

 dawn. By six o'clock the sun is high in the heavens, 

 and his rays unpleasantly penetrating. It was about 

 this time the next morning that I returned from my 

 ride. I went at once to the ants' nest. It was situated, 

 I may mention, on the uppermost of the terraces— the 

 one nearest to the house. The track now presented 

 a very different appearance to that of the previous 

 evening, for, broad and long as it was, it was never- 



