ARMY ANTS IN BRITISH GUIANA. 



301 



■"On the flat board were several thousand ants and a dozen or more 

 groups of full-grown larvte. Workers of all sizes were searching every- 

 where for some covering for the tender immature creatures. They 

 liad chewed up all available loose splinters of wood, and near the 

 rotten, termite-eaten ends, the sound of dozens of jaws gnawing all at 

 once was plainly audible. This unaccustomed, unmilitary labor pro- 

 duced a cjuantity of fine sawdust which was sprinkled over the larvae. 

 I had made a partition of a bit of a British officer's tent which I had 

 used in India and China, made of several layers of colored canvas and 



Figure 4. 

 tead of male. 



Eciton burchelli Westw. (a) Head of female, dorsal view; (6) 



cloth. The ants found a loose end of this, teased it out, and unraveled 

 it, so that all the larvae near by were blanketed with a gray parti- 

 colored covering of fuzz. 



" All this strange work was hurried and carried on under great excite- 

 ment. The scores of big soldiers on guard appeared rather ill at ease, 

 ^s if they had wandered by mistake into the wrong department. They 

 ■sauntered about, bumped into larvae, turned and fled. A constant 

 stream of workers from the nest brought hundreds more larvae, and no 

 sooner had they been planted and debris of sorts sifted over them, than 

 they began spinning. A few had already swathed themselves in 



