THE ARMY ANTS' HOME TOWN 75 



the appearance of the fur of some terrible ani- 

 mal — fur blowing in the wind from some un- 

 known, deadly desert. Yet so cohesive was the 

 entire mass, that I sat close beneath it for the 

 best part of two days and not more than a dozen 

 ants fell upon me. There was, however, a con- 

 stant rain of egg-cases and pupa-skins and the 

 remains of scorpions and grasshoppers, the resi- 

 due of the booty which was being poured in. 

 These wrappings and inedible casing were all 

 brought to the surface and dropped. This was 

 reasonable, but what I could not comprehend 

 was a constant falling of small living larvse. How 

 anything except army ants could emerge alive 

 from such a sinister swarm was inconceivable. 

 It took some resolution to stand up under the 

 nest, with my face only a foot away from this 

 slowly seething mass of widespread jaws. But 

 I had to discover where the falling larv« came 

 from, and after a time I found that they were 

 immature armv ants. Here and there a small 

 worker would appear, carrying in its mandibles 

 a young larva; and while most made their way 

 through the maze of mural legs and bodies and 

 ultimately disappeared aofain, once in a while the 

 burden was dropped and fell to the floor of the 



