AMAZON ANTS. 807 
hill. I know not from what motive this 
conduct on the part of the auxiliaries 
arises; I have often remarked it, and it 
is a certain fact, that the Legionaries 
never go to pillage before that period. 
If they began earlier to purloin the larve 
and pupz belonging to the Negro Ants, 
they would make great booty ; it would, 
however, be in a great degree composed of 
the pupe of males and females, and these 
it seems, they are not permitted to seize. 
Nature, aware of the serious inconve- 
niencies that would arise from an attack 
made at this time by the Amazons, par- 
ticularly guards against it, by producing 
the males and females of those ant-hills 
destined to pillage at a much earlier 
period than the males and females of 
the martial ants, and in not permitting 
thelatter to be engaged in acts of rapine, 
until the metamorphosis of the winged 
imsects has taken place. 
The Ash-coloured and Mining Ants, 
are to be considered then as the negroes 
of the Amazons ; it is from among them 
