SEQUELS 289 



army and leaf-cutters may quite reasonably be 

 classified according to Kingdom. The former, 

 with carnivorous, voracious, nervous, vitally ac- 

 tive members, seems an intangible, animal-like 

 organism; while the stolid, vegetarian, unemo- 

 tional, weather-swung Attas, resemble the flow- 

 ing sap of the food on which they subsist — vege- 

 table. 



Yet, whatever the simile, the net of uncon- 

 scious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh 

 of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. 

 This was manifested by the most significant and 

 spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in 

 the world of insects. One year and a half ago I 

 studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or 

 army ants/ Now, eighteen months later, appar- 

 ently the same army appeared and made a simi- 

 lar nest of their own bodies, in the identical spot 

 near the door of the out-house, where I had found 

 them before. Again we had to break up the tem- 

 porary colony, and killed about three-quarters 

 of the colony with various deadly chemicals. 



In spite of all the tremendous slaughter, the 

 Ecitons, in late afternoon, raided a small colony 

 of Wasps-of-the-Painted-Nest. These little 



1 See page 68. 



