WITH ARMY ANTS 219 



looking like the jet-black head of a tiny pin, 

 was the single remaining facet of the eye, the 

 degenerate residue of the hundreds which were 

 present in their ancestors, and which the per- 

 fect males and females still possess and look 

 through. Even this single eye is a sham, for its 

 optic nerve dies out before the brain ganglion 

 is reached ; so we come to the astounding realiza- 

 tion that these ants are totally blind, and carry 

 on all their activities through the sense or senses 

 residing in those marvelous quivering antennae. 

 Here are beings spending all their lives in cease- 

 less changing activities, meeting and coping with 

 constantly new conditions, yet wholly blind. 

 Their sense of smell dominates their judgment 

 of substance, and the moment an army ant 

 reached my moccasin he sank jaws and sting 

 deep into the fabric as instinctively and in- 

 stantly as when he executed the same manoeu- 

 vers more effectively on my hand. 



Keeping this handicap in mind, the achieve- 

 ments of these little creatures assumed a still 

 greater significance, and with renewed interest 

 and appreciation I again surveyed the scene in 

 the amphitheater before me. When the major- 

 ity of the pit victims had been slain, the process 



