240 



THE BIOLOGY OF INSECTS 



projecting antennae intertwining form a sort of network." 

 He watched these driver ants hang together so as to form 

 " festoons or lines of the size of a man's thumb," reaching 

 from the lower branches of trees to the undergrowth. 

 Across such living bridges other ants can pass to and fro, up 

 or down. Savage saw ** one of these festoons in the act of 

 formation . . . ant after ant coming down from above, 

 extending their long limbs and opening wide their jaws 

 gradually lengthening out the living chain until it touched 

 the broad leaf of a Canna below." As the festoon of ants 



Fig. 61. — South African "Driver" Ants, a, Dory lus fulviis, male, 

 X 3 ; 6, Z). fimbriatiis, female (queen after casting wings), X 3 ; 

 c, D.fulvus, worker, X 2. After G. Arnold (Amu S. Afr. Mus. xiv, 

 1916). 



swung in the wind, the lowest ant tried to lay hold of the 

 leaf with feet or jaws without success, whereupon a large 

 worker climbed up on the leaf from below and " fixing hind- 

 legs with the apex of the abdomen firmly to the leaf," 

 reached upwards with her front legs and opening wide her 

 jaws, seized the lowest comrade on the chain, '' and thus 

 completed the most curious ladder in the world." While 

 the large workers or " soldiers " attack, seize, and bite up 

 the prey, the small members v^dth short mandibles carry the 

 grubs and pupae when on migration. The nests of these 

 driver ants are to a considerable extent temporary. Wheeler 



