98 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
Don’t be alarmed, and imagine I am going to repeat 
to you the fable of the ancients, that they wear a path in 
the stones?; for I suppose you will scarcely be brought 
to believe that, as Hannibal cut a way for the passage 
of his army over the Alps by means of vinegar, so the 
ants may with equal effect employ the formic acid: but 
more species than one do really form roads which lead 
from their formicaries into the adjoining country. Gould, 
speaking of his jet-ant (F. fuliginosa), says that they 
make several main track-ways, (streets he calls them,) 
with smaller paths striking off from them, extending 
sometimes to the distance of forty feet from their nest, 
and leading to those spots in which they collect their 
provisions; that upon these roads they always travel, and 
are very careful to remove from them bits of sticks, straw, 
or any thing that may impede their progress; nay, that 
they even keep low the herbs and grass which grow in 
them, by constantly biting them off>, so that they may 
be said to mow their walks. But the best constructors 
of roads are the hill-ants (/. rufa). Of these De Geer 
says, * When you keep yourself still, without making 
any noise, in the woods peopled with these ants, you may 
hear them very distinctly walking over the dry leaves 
which are dispersed upon the soil, the claws of their feet 
producing a slight sound when they lay hold of them. 
They make in the ground broad paths, well beaten, 
which may be readily distinguished, and which are 
_formed by the going and coming of innumerable ants, 
whose custom it is always to travel in the same route.” 
*Plin, Hist. Nat. |xi.c.29. Gould, 87. ¢ De Geer, ii. 1067. 
