216 ANTS. Chap. XL 



edifice. The soldiers of this other species were much 

 smaller and more slender, and, as I broke the pieces, 

 these two kinds fell to fighting one another. On 

 close inspection I found that these slender fellows 

 came out of cells composed of a yellow earth, whilst 

 the others inhabited cells of black earth. The yellow 

 colour was due to a coating of some foreign substance 

 on the walls of the cell. The chambers inhahited by 

 the slender species did not communicate with those 

 peopled by the lords of the manor ; they seemed 

 rather to be inserted into the vacant spaces or par- 

 tition walls between the other cells. No doubt they 

 had intruded themselves, after the building had been 

 finished, from under the ground. In the fight the 

 larger kind showed no mercy to the smaller. It was 

 quite marvellous to witness the fury with which the 

 soldiers of the one kind seized the bodies of the others 

 with their powerful j^incer-jaws, and carried them 

 away into their own chambers. The soldiers of the 

 slender kind also possessed long pincer-like jaws, and 

 I noticed in one instance, wdien a worker of the larger 

 kind had seized a small worker, who was in her last 

 struggle for life, that one of these slender soldiers flew 

 to the rescue, and snapping into the soft abdomen of 

 the assailant, twice its size, let out its contents ; the 

 slender one then fell from the pincers that had 

 gripped her, but life was extinct. The rescuer came, 

 examined the body, and seeing that she was dead, 

 went away and disappeared ; if she had been only 

 wounded she would probably have been carried away, 

 as they do the young. I may here remark that, 

 with the exception of the head, the body of the ter- 



