20 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. II, 



resembles a green leaf, and the other senses, which in 

 the Ecitons appear to be more acute than that of sight,, 

 must have been completely deceived. It might easily 

 have escaped from the ants by using its wings, but it 

 would only have fallen into as great a danger, for the 

 numerous birds that accompany the army ants are ever 

 on the outlook for any insect that may fly up, and the 

 heavy flying locusts, grasshoppers, and cockroaches have 

 no chance of escape. Several species of ant-thrushes 

 always accompany the army ants in the forest. They do 

 not, however, feed on the ants, but on the insects they 

 disturb. Besides the ant-thrushes, trogons, creepers, and 

 a variety of other birds, are often seen on the branches 

 of trees above where an ant army is foraging below, 

 pursuing and catching the insects that fly up. 



The insects caught by the ants are dismembered, and 

 their too bulky bodies bitten to pieces and carried off to 

 the rear ; and behind the army there are always small 

 columns engaged on this duty. I have followed up these 

 columns often ; generally they led to dense masses of 

 impenetrable brushwood, but twice they led me to cracks 

 in the ground, down which the ants dragged their prey. 

 These habitations are only temporary, for in a few days 

 not an ant would be seen in the neighbourhood, but all 

 would have moved off to fresh hunting-grounds. 



Another much larger species of foraging ant (Eciton 

 hamata) hunts sometimes in dense armies, sometimes in 

 columns, according to the prey it may be after. When 

 in columns, I found that it was generally, if not always, 

 in search of the nests of another ant (Hypoclinea sp.) t 

 which bear their young in holes in rotten trunks of fallen 

 timber, and are very common in cleared places. The 



