XXXIV 



themselves of one such aggressor : their body was curled 

 under — but I could see no sting — and their jaws came into 

 play with great rapidity. Three Siafu were about a match 

 for one Stink- Ant and I watched one such struggle through a 

 high-power glass. Generally speaking, the Siafu, which were 

 attacking every other creature I could see, left the Stink- 

 Ants alone. 



In the . afternoon I witnessed an interesting sight. Two 

 holes, one leading into the wall, the other into the ground, had 

 a common opening. Siafu were streaming into the wall, 

 and had a strong barrier or cordon of soldiers thrown across 

 the aperture of the second hole. I was just in time to see a 

 Stink-Ant come from the interior of this second hole very 

 softly, seize a soldier by his jaws and, hauling him from his 

 comlrades, drag him into the hole. I settled down to watch 

 and saw this little passage of arms occur a number of times. 

 The way the Stink- Ant would appear and disappear, lurking 

 in the entrance, was very sinister : then, approaching the 

 wall of Siafu gently, he would pause; the soldiery would 

 quiver with excitement and reach forward toward him, but 

 discipline or good sense forbad them to break their line. 

 Suddenly one would be seized, although occasionally the 

 Stink-Ant would fail, and if several soldiers caught him, as 

 happened twice, another Stink-Ant would come to the rescue 

 and a melee would follow in which the line would get broken. 



All around the walls of the house are many of the inverted 

 cone-shaped pits of the Ant-lions, and it was a common thing 

 for the Siafu workers to tumble into these and be caught. I 

 wondered what the Ant-lion could do against the more for- 

 midable soldier Siafu, and so dropped five of them into five 

 pits. The question was obviously incorrect and should have 

 been " What could the Siafu do ? " 



The soldier would be seized by the Ant-lion by one of the 

 middle pair of legs, and, struggle as he might, he could get no 

 purchase on the shifting sand. There was nothing else for 

 him to do but struggle, nothing of the unseen foe to attack, 

 nothing but shifting sand for his formidable jaws to bite. As 

 he weakened the abdomen was drawn down, and in one 

 instance I saw it nipped by the jaws of the Ant-lion, which 



