284: COMPOUND ANT-HILLS. 
-extraordinary. Upon their return our 
Amazons met with no flattering recep- 
tion from the Negroes in the mixed ant- 
hill, who individually assailed, buffeted 
and dragged them to the outside of the 
nest, where they even obliged them to 
-act on the defensive: this hostile dispo- 
sition, however, continued only a few mo- 
ments, when the Amazons were allowed 
to re-enter their citadel. Are we to con- 
clude that the Negro Ants were surprised 
at seeing them arrive without their ac- 
customed booty, or did the larve, &c. 
serve in their eyes as passports for those 
with whose fate their own was so inti- 
mately linked ? 
The Legionaries never take animal 
food. I have often cast among them 
living insects, such as_ caterpillars, 
worms, &c., but never observed they 
touched them. I have also placed before 
to account for those occasional deviations from their 
natural habits that are inexplicable on the ground of. 
instinct alone. — T, 
