184 - WARS OF ANTS. 
fury of these insects in their combats ; it 
would be more easy to tear away their 
limbs and cut them in pieces, than com- 
pel them to quit their hold. It is nothing 
uncommon to see the head of an ant sus- 
pended to the legs or antennee of some 
worker, who bears about, in every place, 
this pledge of his victory. We also ob- 
serve, not unfrequently, the ants drag- 
ging after them the entire body of some 
enemy they had killed some time before, 
fastened to their feet in such a way as 
not to allow of their disengaging them- 
selves. 
Supposing the ants to be of equal size, 
those furnished with a sting have an ad- 
vantage over those who employ only for 
their defence their venom and their teeth. 
The whole of those ants whose peduncle 
has no scale, but one or two knots, are 
provided with a sting; the Red Ants, 
which are said to sting more sharply than 
the rest, possess both these sorts of arms. 
In general the ants furnished with a sting 
are, in our country, some of the smallest. 
