FRATERNAL CONFEDERACIES AMONG ANTS 



severed, and its beautiful life extinct. Another sentinel 

 follows, and another, only to meet the same fate. But 

 others crowd to the combat, eagerly facing and meeting 

 wounds and death. Overwhelmed by numbers, the black 

 warrior is at last conquered and dragged into the 

 formicary, where its dismembered body is sucked dry 

 and its shelly parts dumped upon the refuse-heap, or 

 mayhap built into the growing walls, along with vegetable 

 debris of various sorts. 



This courageous and unselfish disregard of person 

 and absolute devotion to the communal safety at the 

 cost of life or limbs is characteristic of ant citizens ; not 

 of a few, but of all; not rarely and occasionally, but 

 always; not under compulsion, but freely and without 



Fig. 15 SINGLE MOUND OF F. EXSECTOIDES, BRUSH 



MOUNTAINS, PENNSYLVANIA 



reward of any sort. Not even the high stimulus of 

 applause of comrades and of honors from their fellows 

 urge and sustain them. Such conduct is so much a 



