Chap. V. ORDER OF MARCH. 359 



flying about them. In bearing off their spoil in frag- 

 ments, the pieces are apportioned to the earners with 

 some degree of regard to fairness of load : the dwarfs 

 taking the smallest pieces, and the strongest fellows 

 with small heads the heaviest portions. Sometimes two 

 ants join together in carrying one piece, but the worker- 

 majors with their unwieldy and distorted jaws, are 

 incapacitated from taking any part in the labour. The 

 armies never march far on a beaten path, but seem to 

 prefer the entangled thickets where it is seldom pos- 

 sible to follow them. I have traced an army some- 

 times for half a mile or more, but was never able to 

 find one that had finished its day's course and returned 

 to its hive. Indeed, I never met with a hive ; whenever 

 the Ecitons were seen, they were always on the march. 

 I thought one day, at Villa Nova, that I had come 

 upon a migratory horde of this indefatigable ant. The 

 place was a tract of open ground near the river side, just 

 outside the edge of the forest, and surrounded by rocks 

 and shrubbery. A dense column of Ecitons was seen 

 extending from the rocks on one side of the little haven, 

 traversing the open space, and ascending the opposite 

 declivity. The length of the procession was from sixty 

 to seventy yards, and yet neither van nor rear was 

 visible. All were moving in one and the same direction, 

 except a few individuals on the outside of the column, 

 which were running rearward, trotting along for a short 

 distance, and then turning again to follow the same 

 course as the main body. But these rearward movements 

 were going on continually from one end to the other of 

 the line, and there was every appearance of their being a 



