ANTS' NESTS. 299 



serving, the different parts of the connection, think of 

 their own parts only, the one to measure the profits of 

 his art, and the other the barren glory of his science ; 

 and thus the practical good is lost between them. 



The green woodpeckers do not find the whole of their 

 food upon the trees ; for they are sometimes found upon 

 the ground devouring their fellow labourers, the ants, 

 in great numbers. Those insects (the large red variety) 

 are exceedingly numerous in the open places of the 

 pine and birch woods in the north of Scotland. We 

 have often seen their hills eight or nine feet in diame- 

 ter at the base, three or four feet in height, and so old 

 that in places they began to be covered with moss. 

 We never found them directly under the trees, probably 

 because the drip from these would have been too much 

 for the roof of the structure ; but they are always in or 

 close by the wood ; and the highways, which for a con- 

 derable distance from the encampment are completely 

 formed and trodden, always lead to the trees. In favour- 

 able weather, the numbers that stir out are incredible to 

 those that have not seen them; and we have found the 

 body of a dead animal so completely buried by them, 

 that the mass had the appearance of a living mole hill. 

 They do not attack any vegetable substance in those 

 parts, except the gum upon a wild cherry, or berries, 

 and the former are not very numerous, and the bilberry, 

 the most abundant of the latter, are not quite to their 

 taste. The only use that they make of vegetable sub- 

 stances is in the formation of their nests, which are 

 wholly made of the withered leaves of pine, and bits of 

 heath, and other small twigs, cut into lengths of from 

 a fifth to the tenth of an inch. The precise way in 



