84 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



the weight of the wood seemed for a while to overpower 

 him : he did not remain long perplexed with it ; for three or 

 four others, observing his dilemma, came behind and pushed 

 it up. As soon, however, as he had got it on level ground, 

 they left it to his care and went to their own work. The 

 piece he was drawing happened to be considerably thicker at 

 one end than the other. This soon threw the poor fellow 

 into a fresh difficulty : he unluckily dragged it between two 

 bits of wood. After several fruitless efforts, finding it would 

 not go through, he adopted the only mode that even a 

 reasoning being, in similar circumstances, could have taken ; 

 he came behind it, pulled it back again, and turned it on its 

 edge; when, running again to the other end, it passed through 

 without difficulty." 



Two exactly similar cases have been bi-iefly told to the 

 author. Herr F. Moll, of Worms, watched a wood-ant, 

 which was carrying a beech-nut obliquely between its jaws, 

 and wanted to pass through the rather narrow crevice in a 

 gnarled root. As it did not succeed after several attempts, 

 it retreated a few steps, laid down the husk on tlfe ground, 

 seized it by its naiTow end and drew it easily through the 

 crevice ! Could a man have done it better ? Dr. Ludwig 

 Nagel, of Schmolle, sends the author the following : he was 

 once on a summer day passing through a beautiful flowery 

 valley, and on the north side of a mountain wall with a 

 southern aspect, he came across an old decayed oak trunk ; 

 round this a swarm of ants were busied carrying building 

 materials to the hill, while others, relieved of their loads, 

 were coming back. He noticed one ant, laden with a bit of 

 wood, which could not manage its task, and always fell back 

 again after it had struggled forward a little way. A second 

 ant perceived this, and, coming to the aid of its friend, 

 caught hold of the wood, which was now carried to the 

 building between the two. Rather more complicated, but 

 therefore the more interesting, is an instance observed by 

 Herr Albert Peifer, a merchant of Liegnitz, and related in 

 the following words to the author : 



"A fine autumn afternoon of the year 1866 enticed me 

 into a walk in an old fir wood ; some friends were with me. 

 An ant-hill, inhabited by the small black wood-ant, 

 attracted my attention to the greatest degree, as indeed would 

 have been the case with anyone who had for a long time 



