12 Journey ings of an Ant. 



here for a lengthened period the ant goes utterlj^ out 

 of sight, lost in the interior, slowly groping round 

 about within, and finally emerging in a glade where 

 your walking-stick, carelessly- thrown on the ground, 

 bends back the grass and so throws open a lane to 

 the traveller. In a straight line the distance thus 

 painfully traversed may be ten or twelve inches ; cer- 

 tainly in getting over it the insect has covered not 

 less than three times as much, probably more — now 

 up, now down, backwards and sideways, searching 

 out a passage. 



As this process goes on from morn till night 

 through the long summer's day, some faint idea may 

 be obtained of the journeys thus performed, against 

 difficulties and obstacles before which the task of 

 crossing Africa from sea to sea is a trifle. How, for 

 instance, does the ant manage to keep a tolerably 

 correct course, steering straight despite the turns and 

 labyrinthine involutions of the path? It is never 

 possible to see far in front — half the time not twice 

 its own length ; often and often it is necessary to 

 retrace the trail and strike out a fresh one — a step 

 that would confuse most persons even in an EngUsh 

 wood with which they were unacquainted. 



Yet by some power of observation, perhaps supe- 

 rior in this respect to the abiUties of greater creatures, 

 the tiny thing guides its footsteps without faltering 

 down yonder to the nest in the hollow on the bank 

 of the ploughed field. I say by observation, and the 

 exercise of faculties resembling those of the mind, 

 because I have many times tried the supposed un- 

 erring instinct of the ant, and found it fail : there- 

 fore it must possess a power of correcting error which 



