on some definite quest, soon returned thereunto, and continued to advance and retire from the field of action with tolerable regularity.  Not less than sixty or seventy ants appeared to be engaged in this labor of scouring the country around.  The object of their repeated journeys in all directions was soon discovered.  They were the self-appointed scouts, engaged in the work of reconnoitring.  Such at least is a fair interpretation of the acts of the ants, and such also is the conclusion borne out by the subsequent course of events.  For, after the scouts had spent a considerable time in their rapid journeys to the environments of the nest, a new set of ants appeared upon the scene, destined to perform a highly important series of labors.

The scouts continued their journeyings, and gave one the idea of a set of fussy individuals who were superintending, or even bullying, their new neighbors, who appeared from amongst the ruins and debris of the ant city, carrying in their mouths certain oval bodies of a dirty-white color, and measuring each about one-third of an inch in length.  Each of these bodies closely resembled a grain of corn in shape, size, and appearance.  The spectacle of these small insects carrying off these bodies in their powerful jaws impressed one forcibly with the idea that, relatively to its size, an ant is an herculean insect.

Occasionally there might be seen certain rather ludicrous incidents connected with the removal of the objects in question.  One ant might be witnessed in the endeavor to hoist the oval body it was carrying in its mouth over some obstacle lying in the path, and the staggering gait of the insect seemed very accurately to mimic the similar disposition of a human porter struggling under a burdensome load.  Another ant, carrying the oval body before it, would arrive at a steep incline formed of loose sand, and presenting a treacherous surface even to the light feet of the insect.  The efforts of the ant to carry the body upward being found to be fruitless, the insect might be seen to whirl about with great rapidity of action, and ascend the hill backward, pulling the body after it, instead of pushing it as before.

Another instance might be witnessed in which an ant which had literally come to grief with its burden would be assisted by a kindly neighbor; but it was no uncommon sight to behold in the excessive eagerness of the insects an actual means of defeating the object they had in view, since two ants would in some cases seize the same burden, and then came the tug of war.  One pulled one way whilst the other tugged in the opposite direction; and the observer could almost have supposed that the burden itself might have been parted in twain by the treatment to which it was subjected—­the incident affording a new application of the remark that a surfeit of zeal is destructive of the best intentions.  The nature of the bodies which the ants seemed so excessively anxious to preserve from