360 ANIMALS OF EGA. Chap. V. 



means of keeping up a common understanding amongst 

 all the members of the army, for the retrograding 

 ants stopped very often for a moment to touch one or 

 other of their ownward-moving comrades with their 

 antennae ; a proceeding which has been noticed in other 

 ants, and supposed to be their mode of conveying intel- 

 ligence. When I interfered with the column or ab- 

 stracted an individual from it, news of the disturbance 

 was very quickly communicated to a distance of several 

 yards towards the rear, and the column at that point 

 commenced retreating. All the small-headed workers 

 carried in their jaws a little cluster of white maggots, 

 which I thought, at the time, might be young larvae of 

 their own colony, but afterwards found reason to con- 

 clude were the grubs of some other species whose nests 

 they had been plundering, the procession being most 

 likely not a migration, but a column on a marauding 

 expedition. 



The position of the large-headed individuals in the 

 marching column was rather curious. There was one 

 of these extraordinary fellows to about a score of the 

 smaller class ; none of them carried anything in their 

 mouths, but all trotted along empty-handed and out- 

 side the column, at pretty regular intervals from each 

 other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment 

 of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably exact in this 

 observation, for their shining white heads made them 

 very conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and 

 down as the column passed over the inequalities of the 

 road. I did not see them change their position, or take 

 any notice of their small-headed comrades marching 



