CiiAr. V. RECREATIONS OF ANTS. 361 



iii the column, and when I disturbed the line, they did 

 not prance forth or show fight so eagerly as the others. 

 These large-headed members of the community have 

 been considered by some authors as a soldier class, 

 like the similarly-armed caste in Termites ; but I found 

 no proof of this, at least in the present species, as they 

 always seemed to be rather less pugnacious than the 

 worker-minors, and their distorted jaws disabled them 

 from fastening on a plane surface like the skin of an 

 attacking animal. I am inclined, however, to think that 

 they may act, in a less direct way, as protectors of 

 the community, namely, as indigestible morsels to the 

 flocks of ant-thrushes which follow the marching columns 

 of these Ecitons, and are the most formidable enemies 

 of the species. It is possible that the hooked and 

 twisted jaws of the large-headed class may be effective 

 weapons of annoyance when in the gizzards or stomachs 

 of these birds, but I unfortunately omitted to ascertain 

 whether this was really the fact. 



The life of these Ecitons is not all work, for I fre- 

 quently saw them very leisurely employed in a way 

 that looked like recreation. When this happened, the 

 place was always a sunny nook in the forest. The 

 main column of the army and the branch columns, at 

 these times, were in their ordinary relative positions ; 

 but, instead of pressing forward eagerly, and plundering 

 right and left, they seemed to have been all smitten 

 with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking 

 slowly about, others were brushing their antennae with 

 their fore-feet ; but the drollest sight was their cleaning 

 one another. Here and there an ant was seen stretch- 



