CHAPTER V 

 KIDNAPPING ANTS AND THEIR SLAVES 



CHARLES DARWIN, in his Origi?i of Species, con- 

 fesses that he first approached the subject of 

 slave-holding ants in a sceptical spirit. "Any one," he 

 observes, "may well be excused for doubting the truth 

 of so extraordinary and odious an instinct as that of 

 making slaves." 



But Darwin was to find that slavery among ants is 

 not as odious as his philanthropic feelings had colored 

 it. It is of an Abrahamic type, constituting a family 

 or community of equals. It does not suggest the chattel 

 slavery which human greed developed in modern times. 

 In fact, it can only be called slavery by a strained meta- 

 phor. Certainly, there is kidnapping of an aggravated 

 kind, with the conflict, slaughter, and maiming, the 

 wreckage of homes, the disruption of communities, and 

 the mimic reproduction of spoliation and woe that we 

 associate with the sack of cities in human wars or slave- 

 hunting raids in Africa. 



But after the first assault of the plundering host and 

 the domestication of the kidnapped victims, every 

 odious feature disappears. The larva? and pupse are 

 the main captives, and those spared to be reared as 

 auxiliaries are cared for with assiduous concern. They 

 grow up to be free and happy citizens of their new home. 



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