mint, my paper carpet or my golden sand--the returning
column calls a halt, hesitates and attempts to account for the changes
that have taken place. Yes, it is sight, but a very dull sight, whose
horizon is altered by the shifting of a few bits of gravel. To this
short sight, a strip of paper, a bed of mint-leaves, a layer of yellow
sand, a stream of water, a furrow made by the broom, or even lesser
modifications are enough to transform the landscape; and the regiment,
eager to reach home as fast as it can with its loot, halts uneasily on
beholding this unfamiliar scenery. If the doubtful zones are at length
passed, it is due to the fact that fresh attempts are constantly being
made to cross the doctored strips and that at last a few Ants
recognize well-known spots beyond them. The others, relying on their
clearer-sighted sisters, follow.

Sight would not be enough, if the Amazon had not also at her service a
correct memory for places. The memory of an Ant! What can that be? In
what does it resemble ours? I have no answers to these questions; but a
few words will enable me to prove that the insect has a very exact and
persistent recollection of places which it has once visited. Here is
something which I have often witnessed. It sometimes happens that the
plundered Ant-hill offers the Amazons a richer spoil than the invading
column is able to carry away. Or, again, the region visited is rich in
Ant-hills. Another raid is necessary, to exploit the site thoroughly. In
such cases, a second expedition takes place, sometimes on the next
day, sometimes two or three days later. This time, the column does no
reconnoitring on the way: it goes straight to the spot known to abound
in nymphs and travels by the identical path which it followed before.
It has sometimes happened that I have marked with small stones, for a
distance of twenty yards, the road pursued a couple of days earlier
and have then found the Amazons proceeding by the same route, stone by
stone:

'They will go first here and then there,' I said, according to the
position of the guide-stones.

And they would, in fact, go first here and then there, skirting my line
of pebbles, without any noticeable deviation.

Can one believe that odoriferous emanations diffused along the route
are going to last for several days? No one would dare to suggest it. It
must, therefore, be sight that directs the Amazons, sight assisted by
a memory for places. And this memory is tenac