ARMY ANT,S IN BRITISH GUIANA. 



301 



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

 groups of full-grown larv?e. Workers of all sizes were searching every- 

 where for some covering for the tender immature creatures. They 

 Tiad 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 quantity 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 can^'as and 



Figure 4. 

 head of male. 



Ecito7i burchelli Westw. (a) Head of female, dorsal view; (b) 



■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, 

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

 sauntered about, bum.ped 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 OA'er them, than 

 they began spinning. A few had already swathed themselves in 



