INSECTS 141 



above It. In that temperate climate they do not 

 aestivate, but spend the eight or nine warm months 

 distributed over the land. The snake may go a long 

 distance in search of the female; going to her, he 

 has the wind and the message it conveys to him for 

 guide, but there is no extraneous force, no " nimble 

 emanations " to lead him back to his accustomed 

 haunts — the home where he passes his long summers 

 and his whole life. At the approach of winter, in 

 May, he returns to his hybernaculum, which he 

 shares with many others of his kind, coming in 

 from all directions and various distances. The 

 wintering site is as a rule in a mound on the plain 

 formed by rodents, armadillos and other excavating 

 mammals, and in one of the old cavities they mass 

 themselves together to drowse away the two or three 

 cold months. It is plain that without a sense of 

 direction the serpent, crawling on his belly through 

 the grass over a flat featureless ground, could not 

 find his way back to the same spot each year. 



As to insects, a little observation of wasps, bees, 

 ants and others, both social and solitary, that can- 

 not carry on the business of life without constantly 

 returning to one point, is enough to show that they 

 could not exist without such a sense. It is perhaps 

 most easily seen in the ants. Take your seat on the 

 turf on a chalk down and look at the ground, and 

 you will see a minute black ant hurrying about on 

 his business. You don't know how long he has been 

 abroad, but the chances are you will get tired of 

 watching him before he returns to his home. For 



