march, crosses the garden-paths, disappears from sight in the grass,
reappears farther on, threads its way through the heaps of dead
leaves, comes out again and continues its search. At last, a nest of
Black Ants is discovered. The Red Ants hasten down to the dormitories
where the nymphs lie and soon emerge with their booty. Then we have,
at the gates of the underground city, a bewildering scrimmage between
the defending blacks and the attacking reds. The struggle is too
unequal to remain indecisive. Victory falls to the reds, who race back
to their abode, each with her prize, a swaddled nymph, dangling from
her mandibles. The reader who is not acquainted with these slave-
raiding habits would be greatly interested in the story of the
Amazons. I relinquish it, with much regret: it would take us too far
from our subject, namely, the return to the nest.

The distance covered by the nymph-stealing column varies: it all
depends on whether Black Ants are plentiful in the neighbourhood. At
times, ten or twenty yards suffice; at others, it requires fifty, a
hundred or more. I once saw the expedition go beyond the garden. The
Amazons scaled the surrounding wall, which was thirteen feet high at
that point, climbed over it and went on a little farther, into a
cornfield. As for the route taken, this is a matter of indifference to
the marching column. Bare ground, thick grass, a heap of dead leaves
or stones, brickwork, a clump of shrubs: all are crossed without any
marked preference for one sort of road rather than another.

What is rigidly fixed is the path home, which follows the outward
track in all its windings and all its crossings, however difficult.
Laden with their plunder, the Red Ants return to the nest by the same
road, often an exceedingly complicated one, which the exigencies of
the chase compelled them to take originally. They repass each spot