BRITISH FERTILITY. 197 



so populous and so lively. They ware living masses 

 of ants, while the ground for yards about literally 

 rustled with their numbers. I knew ant-hills at 

 home, and had noted them carefully, hills that would 

 fill a cart-box ; but they were like empty tenements 

 compared with these, a fort garrisoned with a com- 

 pany instead of an army corps. These hills stood in. 

 thin woods by the roadside. From each of them 

 radiated five main highways, like the spokes of a 

 wheel. These highways were clearly defined to the 

 eye, the grass and leaves being slightly beaten down. 

 Along each one of them there was a double line of 

 ants, one line going out for supplies and the other 

 returning with booty, worms, flies, insects, a con- 

 stant stream of game going into the capitol. If the 

 ants, with any given worm or bug, got stuck, those 

 passing out would turn and lend a helping hand. The 

 ground between the main highways was being 

 threaded in all directions by individual ants, beating 

 up and down for game. The same was true of the 

 surface all about the terminus of the roads, several 

 yards distant. If I stood a few moments in one 

 place, the ants would begin to climb up my shoes and 

 so up my legs. Stamping them off seemed only to 

 alarm and enrage the whole camp, so that I would 

 presently be compelled to retreat. Seeing a big 

 straddling beetle, I caught him and dropped him 

 upon the nest. The ants attacked him as wolves 

 might attack an elephant. They clung to his legs, 

 they mounted his back, and assaulted him in front. 



