28 



«acli other's homes. This also will prevent too close inter- 

 breeding, the females of all parts of such a district being 

 scattered ad libitum, but eagerly preserved by the workers, as 

 being possessed of the same " scent," while those bred from 

 nests originating from a different centre, or the connection of 

 which had been severed by some cause or other for a very con- 

 siderable period, are destroyed, as Sir J. Lubbock's experiments 

 prove. 



When the interests of two hostile districts {i.e., such without 

 previous connection) interfere with each other war ensues, and 

 is kept up for days and nights, if dry weather prevails, with 

 an outrageous determination and cruelty. Thousands of ants 

 may then be seen in groups of two, three, or more, trying 

 which can disable the other first, the dead bodies, with the 

 -crippled ones who have lost more limbs than necessary to 

 move with, lining both sides of the track along which the 

 glaughter proceeds. The latter appears only to cease with the 

 utter exhaustion of one of the parties or a heavy continuous 

 rain. Battles like the one described seem to take place but 

 rarely, as I have but three or four times met with them during 

 many years' observation of insects. 



The small " Black Ants" do not form "cities," but each 

 nest has only one, rarely two, entrances, surrounded by a 

 <ionical dyke of ejected pellets, or are quite unprotected. 

 They avail themselves of hollow spaces under stones and in 

 walls — even those under bark or in rotten wood are not 

 despised. But they likewise have roads or tracks, along which 

 they pass through the grass, and in the course of which occa- 

 sionally new shafts are sunk, thus exhibiting the same manner 

 of operations as the larger species. 



