90 LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
Some, which engage in military expeditions, 
previously send out spies to collect information, 
and when they return, the army proceeds accord- 
ingly to the quarter whence they arrived. Upon 
the march, communications are continually making 
between the van and the rear, and when arrived 
at the camp of the enemy, and the battle is begun, 
couriers are despatched to the nest for reinforce- 
ments, if necessary. What more can man do in 
his expeditions ? It is well known that ants give 
each other notice of a store of provision. Bradley 
says that a nest of ants, in a nobleman's garden, 
discovered a closet in the house in which pre- 
serves were kept; some in their rambles must 
have made the discovery and imparted it to their 
comrades, for they constantly visited it till the 
nest was destroyed. I will also give you an- 
other authority, which I hope you will consider 
very respectable, I mean my own. I have often 
watched the track of the ants across the path of 
the garden, and sometimes when an ant had pro- 
ceeded at the usual pace, half across, another 
would come running after him, and touching 
him with his antennae, or horns, they would both 
run back again as fast as their little legs would 
carry them, leaving me in the greatest curiosity 
to know what they said. I never saw one meet 
