HOW ANTS CARRY ON WAR 



-small openings on the edge of the paved walk two 

 streams of recruits were pouring toward the scene of 

 strife. Their bodies fairly quivered under the in- 

 tensity of their emotion as they ran along, reminding one 

 of human crowds hurrying to a fire or a fight. As the 

 two opposing streams met and intermingled, ant tackled 

 ant in deathly grapple, and thus the fury of the battle 

 was fed. 



Of one party, distinguished as "Alpha," a long file of 

 warriors was running from the field along the trail to 

 the home nest. They challenged briefly every passing 

 fellow, and pushed on. I conceived, as a solution of 

 this conduct, that this was a file of messengers bearing 

 from the field an appeal for recruits. They certainly 

 were not running away. All appearances and all ex- 

 perience were against that inference. At all events, the 

 ideas of a recruiting detail, a call for relief, fell in with 

 the analogy of a human battle-field so strongly suggested 

 by the scene before me. 



From the central point of the fight, as first seen at the 

 edge of the walk nearest the "Alphas," the vortex of the 

 combat gradually shifted toward the gate of their an- 

 tagonists, the "Gammas." At first it seemed as though 

 that army were being slowly pushed from the field. 

 But if so, the tide of battle afterward turned; for victory 

 finally remained with them, as far as it could be adjudged 

 to either party. At this period the field of battle was 

 spread over a space two feet long by six inches wide, the 

 fighters grouped most thickly about two centres, be- 

 yond and around which the walk was dotted with many 

 duellists and small contending groups. 



At 12.30 P.M. the battle, which had begun at 8.30 A.M., 



was practically over. The "rear guard" of the Alphas 



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