CHAPTER XI 

 HOW ANTS CARRY OX WAR 



NO living creatures known to the writer so closely 

 resemble man in the tendency to wage pitched 

 battles as do ants. Vast numbers of separate species, 

 or of hostile factions of the same species, may be seen 

 massed in combat, which is continued for hours, days, or, 

 in at least one case noted, for over a week. Some of 

 the most extensive battles observed have been fought 

 between neighboring communes of Tetramoriunica'spituni, 

 a small dark-brown species common to America and 

 Europe. It abounds in and around Philadelphia, where 

 it is popularly known as the " pavement ant, " on account 

 of its habit of making its nest under the bricks and flags 

 of sidewalks. 



I have often seen them engaged upon the large paving- 

 flags that cover the walk from the manse through the 

 grassy terrace fronting the church at Chestnut and 

 Thirty-seventh Street. They fairly blackened con- 

 siderable spaces of the gray stones with the vast numbers 

 of the combatants. Some details of one of these fights 

 will give a fair type of all. In the centre the warriors 

 were heaped several ranks high. The mass seemed to 

 boil with the intensity of the action. There was no 

 appearance of orderly array or "line of battle ' ; forma- 

 tion. It was literally a melee, recalling descriptions of 



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