GIANT ROAD-MAKERS 117 



the same old roads they have travelled in previous 

 years, and later they return along the same road. 

 They have frequently been observed to cross rivers 

 at the same place season after season. Nothing 

 but great destruction of their numbers will cause 

 them to change their roads. 



It may be that these wise creatures move in file 

 to and fro over certain regions to get food from 

 these places, like a reaping-machine, or a grazing 

 sheep, which works backward and forward on a 

 grassy hillside. .We know that in a tobacco field 

 they are most methodical. They take row after 

 row of tobacco and pick the worms. And what- 

 ever man's idea of their plans and methods of work, 

 the fact remains that their variety of roads and 

 methods of hunting are quite in accordance with 

 their high degree of intelligence. 



Birds, hke mankind, are divided into the dull, 

 stay-at-home races and those that travel out into 

 the great world. The former are contented with 

 a tiny hut on a hillside, and a peach orchard; the 

 latter, even for a brief period of life, are con- 

 tented vdth nothing less than a hemisphere. As 

 long as mankind did not monopolise every avail- 

 able area the travellers and road-makers among the 

 birds could move more or less as they pleased; but 

 "of late years the settlement and levelling up of 



