Foraging Ants 17 
some species, shading off in others through various grada- 
tions to insignificance, if not extinction, are known by 
naturalists to occur in numerous genera; and so far they 
have only been explained on the supposition of the descent 
of the different species from a common progenitor. 
As I returned to the boat, I crossed a column of the army 
or foraging ants, many of them dragging along the legs and 
mangled bodies of insects that they had captured in their 
HEADS OF MOT-MOTS 
foray. I afterwards often encountered these ants in the 
forests, and it may be convenient to place together all the 
facts I learnt respecting them. 
ECITONS, OR Foracinc Ants.—The Ecitons, or foraging 
ants, are very numerous throughout Central America. 
Whilst the leaf-cutting ants are entirely vegetable feeders, 
the foraging ants are hunters, and live solely on insects or 
other prey; and it is a curious analogy that, like the hunt- 
ing races of mankind, they have to change their hunting- 
grounds when one is exhausted, and move on to another. 
