ROAD-MAKING ANIMALS 37 



such slopes, like a reaping-machine, taking about a 

 " neck's length " in width each time. This measure- 

 ment will be found to correspond pretty accurately 

 with the steps on sheep-downs. 



Field-voles make their roads by sinking cuttings ; 

 moles make underground highways, which are quite 

 distinct from the tunnels formed in hunting for 

 food ; trapdoor-spiders make gates, and other spiders 

 form suspension-bridges ; but no animal has yet 

 thought of forming an embankment, on which to run 

 a road over wet places, or of building elevated roads, 

 though arboreal creatures are very ingenious in mak- 

 ing use of the interlacing limbs of trees for travelling 

 on, and have regular highways from tree to tree. 



Even in so simple a matter as road-making there 

 is room for diversity in the motives of the con- 

 structors. It will be remembered that among the 

 items of expenditure debited to the account of the 

 firm of brigands directed by the Ifyi des Montagnes 

 was that of mending the road to Thebes. It had so 

 fallen out of repair that travellers declined to use it, 

 and " business " in this part of his dominions had 

 fallen off. Though not rivalling the powers of fore- 

 sight possessed by Hadgi Stavros, some animals do 

 put their roads to uses more complex than mere ease 

 of travel. The most sinister purpose for which a 

 seeming roadway is constructed is devised by certain 

 spiders. The species in question frequents sunny 

 heaths, commons, and furze brakes, and selects by 

 preference some portion of ground which has been 

 trenched by a field-vole or mole. Frequently these 



