10 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



some barefooted labourers, who, as they approached a certain spot 

 broke into a a short run ending with a long step over something 

 in the path, calling out as they did so, Fourmis chasseurs .' When 

 we reached the place we found one of those most curious, of all 

 curious facts, in Natural History. A column of hunting ants* 

 four inches in width, was crossing the road on which they 

 had formed a regular beaten track. They did not keep dressing, 

 and distance, as do the units in civilized human armies — but each 

 individual had plenty of room to march, in the fashion of 

 barbarous nations on the warpath. We watched these ants for 

 hours and the longer we did so the more forcibly were we 

 reminded of the time when the Huns and the Goths, swept down 

 in countless hordes upon the civilized nations of southern Europe, 

 ransacking their cities, and destroying as ruthlessly as with fire, 

 all which lay in their path. These ants, like their human 

 prototypes, have no fixed abode, they build no elaborate struc- 

 tures, nor do they excavate labyrinthine cities beneath the 

 surface of the soil, as do many species. Hunting ants neither 

 herd cattle (in the shape aphides) nor are they mushroom growers, 

 or grain cultivators, or slave hunters as many other kinds are. 

 They are merely great armies of savages whose only trade is war 

 and pillage, in pursuit of which they march from place to place, 

 carrying with them their queen and their young, resting only a 

 few hours, or at most, a day or two, and then moving on again. 

 Their mission is to destroy every living thing which cannot save 

 itself by either speed or cunning. Even man himself retreats at 

 the first indication of their approaching invasion and leaves them 

 masters of his hearth and home. This column of ants had at 

 intervals larger ants marching by themselves on its flanks. The 

 jaws of these individuals were long and sickle-shaj)cd, and they 

 cut through the skin, drawing blood very quickly, as we found 

 by actual experiment. Like the Goths, these ants had been on 

 an expedition, and bore in their train the spoils they 

 had captured. These comprised the legs, thighs, portions 

 of the bodies of crickets, cockroaches, tree bugs, small cater- 

 pillars entire, and portions of a centipede. At least one 

 reptile had fallen a victim to them, for the scaly tail of 

 a small lizardf still wriggled in the jaws of half-a-dozen hunters. 

 Portions of spiders, ants' larvae and pupa; of other species were 

 also amongst the spoil. The main column had several small 

 branch columns which investigated every nook and cranny, and 

 dragged out and carried off, or cut up, according to their size, 

 every lurking insect within crevices at a considerable distance from 



* Eciton foreli, Mayr. 



fScolecosaurus cuvieri, Fitz. Locally called vipcre. 



