n all directions. Some of them lead up and down to
the upper and lower stories of the establishment. At the ends of these
galleries are many apartments, some of which serve as nurseries where
the young ants are kept, and others as granaries where the grain is
stored up. The granaries are sometimes one and three-quarter inches
high, and two inches wide, neatly roofed over, and filled to the roof
with grain. That may not seem much of a barn, but if you had one in the
same proportion to your size, it would need no trifle of grain to fill
it."

"But you said they were farmer ants," cried Harry, as if he fancied he
had now got his uncle in a tight place, "and you haven't said a word
about their wheat fields."

"And you tole us they didn't keep cows, too," put in Willie,
triumphantly.

"But I am not half through my story yet," replied Uncle Ben, with a
quiet smile. "We have only been talking about their homes and their
clearings. Now suppose we take a stroll out to the wheat fields by one
of the great roads which the ants make."

"Roads!" cried both boys in surprise.

"Just as fine roads as men could make. Our little farmers always have
three or four of these roads, and sometimes as many as seven, running
straight out from their clearing, often for sixty feet in length. One
observer, in fact, says he saw an ant road that was three hundred feet
long. The roads are from two to five inches wide at the clearing, but
they narrow as they go out, until they are quite lost."

"But are they real roads? You ain't funning, Uncle Ben?" asked Willie.

"They are as hard, smooth, and level as you would want to see, not a
blade of grass, nor a stick nor a stone, upon them. And just think what
little tots they are that make them! That long road I have just
mentioned would be equal to a road made by men ten miles long and
twenty-two feet wide, and yet it is only the ant's pathway to his
harvest field."

"Well, that is the queerest thing yet!" exclaimed Harry.

"In the harvest season these roads are always full of ants, coming and
going," continued Uncle Ben. "There is a great crowd of them at the
entrance, but they thin out as they get further from home. They stray
off under the grass, seeking for the ripe seeds which may have dropped.
They do not seem to climb the grass for the seeds, but only hunt for
them on the ground."

"It's only old _grass_, then, and it ain't wheat after all!" exclaimed
Willie, in some disappointment.

"