THE COMMUNITY OF THE ANTS 



These last, however, despite their lack of the visual sense, have no 

 difficulty in finding their way when they travel in procession. With 

 incredible celerity they dig covered trenches in which they can 

 hurry along in the dark. Bates and Belt are our chief authorities 

 on the life-history of the Migratory Ants, while Vosseler has written 

 of the African Siafu. 



All the Driver Ants are famed for their predatory raids, in which 

 they cover considerable stretches of country. The whole animal 

 world is thrilled with terror when the reddish-yellow armies are on 

 the march. In one species the column is four to six ants wide, while 

 another rushes forward in dense masses. Behind them is a serpen- 

 tine army many thousands strong; Vosseler, indeed, estimated the 

 strength of a tribe of the African Driver Ants at over a million ! 



A wild flight begins when the Taocas appear. Grasshoppers and 

 locusts leap aside; beetles rush forward, but the terrible ants are 

 quicker; in a trice the victim is struggUng in the steely forceps of 

 the soldiers, and the next moment it is cut into pieces. The fragments 

 of booty are quickly handed over to the workers, who carry a larger 

 or smaller joint according to their size. Here an insect clambers 

 desperately up a grass-stalk, but the enemy is after it, and soon it 

 too is seized, killed and dismembered, and its several parts are 

 balanced on the mandibles of the workers. Only the clever Spiders 

 know of a way of escape ; they climb a tree, run to the end of a 

 bough, let themselves down by a thread, and hurry away as fast 

 as their long legs will carry them, while fooUsh insects cower upon 

 the ground and sham dead, but cannot thereby evade their fate. 



Now the army comes to a standstill : a fallen tree-trunk bars the 

 way. But already attacking columns are formed, and every hole and 

 crevice in the tree is searched, yielding a very rich booty ; for here, in 

 silent seclusion, the fat larvae of beetles are eating their fill. Suddenly 

 the unsuspecting creatures are seized in their asylum, and are cut 

 to pieces before they have fully reaHzed their danger. A wasps' nest 

 which has been built in the tree-trunk is overrun; the paper shell 

 is torn open and the brood seized. In vain the savage humming of the 

 infuriated wasps ; as soon as one of them tries to use her sting she 

 is lost; she is seized, and cut to pieces. Even birds' nests and their 

 contents are not safe from the Taocas ; and the African Driver Ants 

 are said to kill and eat ducks and hens, and it is even on record 

 that a leopard once fell a victim to them. Nevertheless, the settlers 

 are not hostile to these terrible ants. Once they have been through 

 a house — which the owner, of course, has to leave in all haste, taking 



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