ANT COMMUNITIES 



'belligerent warriors" among the innumerable species 

 of various colors that filled the African forests; of the 

 "hot- water ants/' as his men not inaptly named them, 

 from the smarting pain of their stings; and of the minute 

 red ants that everywhere covered the forest leaves and 

 attacked his pioneers so viciously that their backs were 

 soon blistered. These creatures doubtless acted from 

 a principle of self-defence that led them to hurl their 

 fighting myriads upon everything that crossed their 

 way and disturbed their solitudes, though with no 

 hostile intent. It was an act of natural bclligerencv, and 



/ / 



no doubt was protective, in the aggregate, of life. It 

 certainly seemed as little reasonable as were the un- 

 provoked attacks of the human hordes of cannibal 

 savages that assailed his expedition in their crowded 

 boats, as he made his way through the heart of the Dark 

 Continent, along the mighty Livingstone River. The 

 tribes of ants and the tribes of men were not unlike in 

 the native cornbativeness that animated them. [St. 

 vol. ii, pp. 138, 225.] 



The woods within whose open spaces the mound- 

 making ants rear their conical cities are also hospitable 

 to the carpenter ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) , 

 and the two species are natural enemies. Wherever 

 they chance to meet a combat is inevitable, in which 

 numbers sometimes become involved, and always death 

 and wounds succeed. Should one of these errant 

 Camponoti, from a near-by nest in a white-oak tree, 

 chance to cross a mound-builder's bounds, its tread, 

 light as it is, affects the commune like a signal-shot or a 

 fire -alarm. From the nearest gates issue squads of 

 sentinels, who fling themselves in mass upon the intruder. 



Flight is thus hindered, even if it were considered, and, 



192 



