362 ANIMALS OF NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cnap. XII. 
on foraging expeditions like the rest of its tribe, and attacks even the 
nests of other stinging species (Myrmica), but it avoids the light, moving 
always in concealment under leaves and fallen branches. When its 
columns have to cross a cleared space, the ants construct a temporary 
covered way with granules of earth, arched over, and holding together 
mechanically ; under this the procession passes in secret, the in- 
defatigable creatures repairing their arcade as fast as breaches are made 
in it. 
Next in order comes the Eciton vastator, which has no eyes, although 
the collapsed sockets are plainly visible ; and, lastly, the Eciton erratica, 
in which both sockets and eyes have disappeared, leaving only a faint 
ring to mark the place where they are usually situated. The armies of 
E. vastator and E. erratica move, as far as I could learn, wholly under 
covered roads, the ants constructing them gradually but rapidly as they 
advance. The column of foragers pushes forward step by step under 
the protection of these covered passages, through the thickets, and on 

Foraging ants (Eciton erratica) constructing a covered road—Soldiers sallying out 
on being disturbed. 
reaching a rotting log, or other promising hunting-ground, pour into the 
crevices in search of booty. I have traced their arcades, occasionally, 
for a distance of one or two hundred yards; the grains of earth are 
taken from the soil over which the column is passing, and are fitted 
together without cement. It is this last-mentioned feature that dis- 
tinguishes them from the similar covered roads made by Termites, who 
use their glutinous saliva to cement the grains together. The blind 
Ecitons, working in numbers, build up simultaneously the sides of their 
convex arcades, and contrive, in a surprising manner, to approximate 
them and fit in the key-stones without letting the loose uncemented 
structure fall to pieces. There was a very clear division of labour between 
the two classes of neuters in these blind species. The large-headed 
class, although not possessing monstrously lengthened jaws like the 
worker-majors in E. hamata and E. drepanophora, are rigidly defined in 
structure from the small-headed class, and act as soldiers, defending the 
working community (like soldier Termites) against all comers. When- 
ever I madea breach in one of their covered ways, all the ants underneath 
