PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 99 
From Huber we further learn, that these roads of the 
hill-ants are sometimes a hundred feet in length, and 
several inches wide; and that they are not formed merely 
by the tread of these creatures, but hollowed out by their 
labour?. Virgil alludes to their tracks in the following 
animated lines, which, though not altogether correct, 
are very beautiful : 
“So when the pismires, an industrious train, 
Embodied rob some golden heap of grain, 
Studious ere stormy winter frowns to lay 
Safe in their darksome cells the treasured prey ; 
In one long track the dusky legions lead 
Their prize in triumph through the verdant mead ; 
Here bending with the load, a panting throng 
With force conjoin’d heave some huge grain along; 
Some lash the stragglers to the task assign’d, 
Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind: 
They crowd the peopled path in thick array, 
Glow at the work, and darken all the way.” 
Bonnet, observing that ants always keep the same track 
both in going from and returning to their nest, imagines 
that their paths are imbued with the strong scent of the 
formic acid, which serves to direct them; but, as Huber 
remarks, though this may be of some use to them, their 
other senses must be equally employed, since it is evident, 
when they have made any discovery of agreeable food, 
that they posses the means of directing their companions 
to it, though it,is scarcely possible that the path can 
have been sufficiently impregnated with the acid for them 
to trace their way to it by scent. Indeed the recruiting 
system described above, proves that it requires some 
a Huber, 146. 
H 2 
