The length of their legs
enabled them to move much quicker, and they raced to and fro over the
path with great rapidity. The space covered by the stream was a foot or
more broad, all of which was crowded and darkened by them, and as there
was no cessation in the flow of this multitude, their numbers must have
been immense.

Standing a short way back, so as not to interfere with their
proceedings, I saw two of these insects seize hold of a twig, one at
each end. The twig, which was dead and dry, and had dropped from a fir,
was not quite so long as a match, but rather thicker. They lifted this
stick with ease, and carried it along, exactly as labourers carry a
plank. A few short blades of grass being in the way they ran up against
them, but stepped aside, and so got by. A cart which had passed a long
while since had forced down the sand by the weight of its load, leaving
a ridge about three inches high, the side being perpendicular.

Till they came to this cliff the two ants moved parallel, but here one
of them went first, and climbed up the bank with its end of the stick,
after which the second followed and brought up the other. An inch or two
farther, on the level ground, the second ant left hold and went away,
and the first laboured on with the twig and dragged it unaided across
the rest of the path. Though many other ants stayed and looked at the
twig a moment, none of them now offered assistance, as if the chief
obstacle had been surmounted.

Several other ants passed, each carrying the slender needles which fall
from firs, and which seemed nothing in their powerful grasp. These
burdens of wood all went in one direction, to the right of the path.

I took a step there, but stayed to watch two more ants, who had got a
long scarlet fly between them, one holding it by the head and the other
by the tail. They were hurrying their prey over the dead leaves and
decayed sticks which strewed the ground, and dragging it mercilessly
through moss and grass. I put the tip of my stick on the victim, but
instead of abandoning it they tugged and pulled desperately, as if they
would have torn it to pieces rather than have yielded. So soon as I
released it away they went through the fragments of branches, rushing
the quicker for the delay.

A little farther there was a spot where the ground for a yard or two was
covered with small dead brown leaves, last year's, apparently of birch,
for some young birch saplings grew close by. On