74 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



which Forel at this moment poured out on the nest. The con- 

 querors delayed for a moment on the dome after their victory, 

 and then entered the nest to bring out a little of the valuable 

 booty. A few Amazons which were mad with anger did not 

 return with the main army, but went on slaughtering blindly 

 among the conquered and the fugitives of the three species, 

 fusca, pratensis, and sanyuinea. 



The ravished rufibarbes once became so desperate at their 

 overthrow that they followed the robbers to their own nest, 

 and the latter had some trouble in defending it. The rujibarbes 

 let themselves be killed in hundreds, and really seemed as 

 though they courted death. A small number of the Amazons 

 also sank under the bites of their enemies. The nest contained 

 slaves of the rufibarbia species, which on this emergency fought 

 actively against their own race. There were also slaves of 

 the species ftisca, so that the nest included three different species 

 of ants. 



The same nest is often revisited many times on the same day 

 or at different periods, until either there is no more to steal, 

 or the plundered folk have hit upon better mode of defence. 

 A column which was in the act of going back to such a plun- 

 dered nest turned when halfway there, and halted, apparently 

 on no other ground than because it had met the rearguard 

 of the army, and had learned that the nest was exhausted, 

 and that there was nothing more to be had there. The 

 robbers then went off to a rufibarbis nest which was in 

 the neighbourhood, and killed half the inhabitants while 

 plundering the nest. The surviving rujibarbes returned 

 after the robbery and brought up new progeny ; but thirteen 

 days later the Amazons again reaped a rich harvest from 

 the same nest. The Amazon army often severs itself into two 

 separate divisions when there is not enough for both to do 

 at the same spot. Sometimes one division finds something 

 and the other nothing, and they then reunite. If any obstacle 

 be placed in their way they try to overcome it, in doing which 

 some leave the main army, lose themselves, and only find their 

 way home again with difficulty. Forel has tried to establish 

 the normal frequency of expeditions, and found that a colony 

 watched by himself for a space of thirty days sent out no less 

 than forty-four marauding excursions. Of these about eight- 

 and-twenty were completely, nine partially, and the remainder 

 not at all successful. He four times saw the army divide into 

 two. Half the expeditions were levelled against the wifibarbes, 

 half against thefiiscce. On an average a successful expedition 



