90 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

 ROAD-MAKING. 



THE ants show almost more cleverness, circumspection, 

 and acuteness in utilising given circumstances or in 

 conquering natural difficulties than even in building their 

 dwellings, in making roads which in their various businesses 

 carried on in and out of the home are naturally of the 

 greatest importance to them. The subterranean tunnels 

 serve sometimes as means of communication with other ant 

 colonies, or with the several parts of an extensive nest; 

 sometimes as has been said, to hide the entrance of the nest, 

 sometimes as roads to a place where food is to beobtained, 

 as for instance sweet sap or the milch-cow Aphides : for all 

 these purposes open uncovered ways are also used, just ac- 

 cording to circumstances. They always choose the shortest 

 way and the most convenient and advantageous method of 

 obtaining their object. They will also use an already pre- 

 pared ground, on which they can pass backwards and for- 

 wards undisturbed for a certain distance, without actually 

 making a road, as for example the base of a wall, or a fence, 

 or the edge of a walk. Where this cannot be done, a 

 special path is made, levelled and cleared from all obstacles, 

 such as dried leaves. Thus regular high roads are built in 

 wooded meadows from one nest to another ; the grass is 

 first mown, and then a firm foundation of cement 

 and sand is laid, and on this again a raised embank- 

 ment, on which they run actively to and fro. In a 

 wood, where the making of the road itself is very 

 easy, but where falling leaves and such like obstacles 

 block the way, the ants give it a certain width, often of as 

 much as two decimetres, or deepen it a little, while in 

 meadows wherein the construction is. as described, difficult 

 but lasting, the road is only from four to six centimetres in 

 width. They do not begin their roads, as might be expected, 



