WARRIOR ANTS, AND THEIR EQUIPMENT 



clamped together with power enough to break and tear 

 tough fibres, or approximated so gently that the soft 

 eggs and tender larva? can be borne about as daintily 

 as an infant in a mother's arms. Thus they aptly com- 

 bine some of the qualities of the human hand with those 

 of a beast's jaws. 



It is this instrument for the two mandibles work 

 together as one organ that serves ants effectively as 

 the chief weapon in their various combats; it is at once 

 war-club, battle-axe, and sword; it will decapitate a 

 foe with the facility of a sabre or guillotine, will sever 

 a leg or antenna as deftly as a scimetar, or crush a skull 

 in its formidable vise as would tomahawk or club. It 

 is terrible to see, in the fierce encounter of emmet war- 

 riors, the cruel havoc wrought by this implement. 



As effective, perhaps, and fatal, but less apparent in 

 its operation, is the weapon attached to the opposite 



Fig. 84 USING THE STING IN FLIGHT 



Occident ant in duel with fetid ant. A comrade Occident 



looks complacently on 



extremity. Enclosed within the vertex of the abdomen 

 is an arrangement of organs known as the sting (Fig. 

 84). In one great division of the ant genera these are 



veritable stinging organs, like those of bees and wasps. 



207 



