84 Chapter II. 



a sandy road near Exaten. It fairly swarmed with 

 righting lawn-ants. The combatants numbered thou- 

 sands and they covered a space of about 70 cm. by 

 8 cm. So dense was the battle-array that individuals 

 could scarcely be distinguished in the mass of war- 

 riors. They formed irregular clusters of from 2 to 14 

 individuals all clinging together with their mandibles 

 and making liberal use of their stings. The summer 

 heat had inflamed the rancor of the two tribes, long 

 living too close together. The battle probably ended 

 with the expulsion or the utter extermination of one 

 of the communities. 



Among men civil wars are generally the fiercest 

 and bloodiest. The same may be said of the wars 

 waged between different ant colonies of the same 

 species. However, only the "heat oppressed brain" of 

 Buechner or Brehm could detect a closer analogy 

 between these phenomena. As the males of certain 

 birds fight for their breeding districts, nor allow 

 other families of the same species to settle there, 1 so 

 ant colonies are wisely compelled by the laws of nature 

 to regard the district about their nest as exclusively 

 their own, on which no other colonies of the same 

 species are suffered to encroach. Otherwise, their 

 wants being equal, their food supplies would become 

 scarce. Hence arises an instinctive hatred between 

 different colonies of the same species; whereas col- 

 onies of different species whose mode of life and 

 means of sustenance are different are admitted much 

 more easily. The preservation of the species neces- 

 sitates the fiercest struggles for existence between 



Altum, "Der Vogel und sein Leben," C6th ed.), P- 128 ff. 



