ANT COMMUNITIES 



sideling the vast number of migrants from one nest at 

 the marriage-flight, were not the losses of life enormous 

 our world might be transformed into an ant-hill! As it 

 is, all males perish, and comparatively few r females gain 

 a foothold upon active communal life. 



But we are yet far from accounting for the origin of 

 that feature in the slave-holding ant's habit which, per- 

 haps, is the most striking to the ordinary student of 

 animal behavior viz., the issuing forth in martial bands 



Fig. 91--WORKER ANTS DEPORTING CAPTIVES OR THEIR FELLOWS 



DURING MIGRATION 



to sack and despoil neighboring communes of other spe- 

 cies, and to transport them to their own nest to enter 

 upon a state of servitude (Fig. 91). 



One needs to keep in view the fact that the primary 

 aim of a Sanguine slave-maker's raid is not to recruit the 

 tale of laborers, but to supply food. The acquisitive in- 

 stinct which in seed-eating ants, as Pogonomyrmex and 

 Pheidole, is expressed in storing grains and oily seeds, 

 has outlet in Sanguinea-rubicunda and her kind in the 

 accumulation of the carnivorous food of which all ants 

 are fond, and which is stored in the compact form of the 

 immature young of plundered species. Doctor Forel 

 observed that his Formica sanguined colonies reared but a 

 small portion of the cocoons given them as a test. One 

 formicary to which he gave "a fabulous number" of 



272 



