they can hear equally well, and are not by any means without mind. These
ants that acted so foolishly to appearance may have been influenced by
some former experience of which we know nothing; there may be something
in the past history of the ant which may lead them to profoundly suspect
interference with their path as indicative of extreme danger. Once,
perhaps, many ant-generations ago, there was some creature which acted
thus in order to destroy them. This, of course, is merely an illustration
put forward to suggest the idea that there may be a reason in the brain
of the ant of which we know nothing. I do not know that I myself am any
more rational, for looking back along the path of life I can see now how
I turned and twisted and went to the right and the left in the most
crooked manner, putting myself to endless trouble, when by taking one
single step straight forward in the right direction, if I had only known,
I might have arrived at once at the goal. Can any of us look beyond the
little ridge of one day and see what will happen the day after? Some
hours afterwards, towards evening, I found the ants were beginning to get
over their difficulty. On one side an ant would go forward in a
half-circle, on the other another ant would advance sideways, and meeting
together they would touch their antennae, and then the first would travel
back with the second, and so the line was reestablished. It was very much
as if two batsmen at opposite wickets should run forward each halfway,
and after shaking hands and conversing, one of them should lead the other
safely over.




WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS.