HEATHLAND8. 119 



road here crossed these dead dry leaves, I became 

 conscious of a rusthng sound, which at first I attri- 

 buted to the wind, but seeing that the fern was still 

 and that the green leaves of a Spanish chestnut 

 opposite did not move, I began to realize that this 

 creeping, rustling noise distinctly audible, was not 

 caused by any wind, but by the thousands upon 

 thousands of insects passing over the dead leaves and 

 among the grass. Stooping down to listen better, 

 there could be no doubt of it: it was the tramp of 

 this immense army. 



The majority still moved in one direction, and 

 I found it led to the heap of rubbish over which they 

 swarmed. This heap was exactly what might have 

 been swept together by half a dozen men using long 

 gardeners' brooms, and industriously clearing the 

 ground under the firs of the fragments which had 

 fallen from them. It appeared to be entirely com- 

 posed of small twigs, fir-needles, dead leaves, and 

 similar things. The highest part, rose about level 

 with my chest — say, between four and ^-^e feet — the 

 heap was irregularly circular, and not less than three 

 or four yards across, with sides gradually sloping. 

 In the midst stood the sapling birches, their stumps 

 buried in it, the rubbish having been piled up around 

 them. 



This heap was, in fact, the enormous nest or hill 

 of a colony of horse ants. The whole of it had been 

 gathered together, leaf by leaf, and twig by twig, 

 just as I had seen the two insects carrying the little 

 stick, and the third the brown leaf above itself. It 

 really seemed some way round the outer circumference 



