Temporary Ants’ Nests 23 
time the information was communicated to the ants below, 
and a dense column rushed up to search for their prey. 
The Ecitons are singular amongst the ants in this respect, 
that they have no fixed habitations, but move on from one 
place to another, as they exhaust the hunting grounds around 
them. I think Eczton hamata does not stay more than four 
or five days in one place. I have sometimes come across the 
migratory columns. They may easily be known by all the 
common workers moving in one direction, many of them 
carrying the larve and pupe carefully in their jaws. Here 
and there one of the light-coloured officers moves backwards 
and forwards directing the columns. Such a column is of 
enormous length, and contains many thousands, if not 
millions of individuals: I have sometimes followed them up 
for two or three hundred yards without getting to the end. 
They make their temporary habitations in hollow trees, 
and sometimes underneath large fallen trunks that offer 
suitable hollows. A nest that I came across in the latter 
situation was open at one side. The ants were clustered 
together in a dense mass, like a great swarm of bees, hanging 
from the roof, but reaching to the ground below. Their 
innumerable long legs looked like brown threads binding 
together the mass, which must have been at least a cubic 
yard in bulk, and contained hundreds of thousands of in- 
dividuals, although many columns were outside, some bring- 
ing in the pupe of ants, others the legs and dissected bodies 
of various insects. I was surprised to see in this living nest 
tubular passages leading down to the centre of the mass, 
kept open just as if it had been formed of inorganic materials. 
Down these holes the ants who were bringing in booty passed 
with their prey. I thrust a long stick down to the centre of 
the cluster, and brought out clinging to it many ants holding 
larve and pupz, which probably were kept warm by the 
crowding together of the ants. Besides the common dark- 
coloured workers and light-coloured officers, I saw here many 
still larger individuals with enormous jaws. These they go 
about holding wide open in a threatening manner, and I 
found, contrary to my expectation, that they could give a 
severe bite with them, and that it was difficult to withdraw 
the jaws from the skin again. 
One day when watching a small column of these ants, 
