VISITORS 63 



the boat floated down with the current, but the ascent 

 of the river was terribly tedious : the voyage of many 

 hundreds of miles had to be made at the pace of a slow 

 walk, and that only during the day-time. 



Next morning, on returning from my ride, I visited 

 the ants of the lower nest. For some few days, I fear, 

 I have rather neglected them. I am sorry to say that 

 I found them all engaged in fighting. From the number 

 of dead and disabled lying about, I concluded that the 

 battle had been going on for some time ; I remained 

 and watched it. Like the battles of Homer, it appeared 

 to consist of an infinity of single combats. The com- 

 bats having once commenced, they continued till one 

 or both of the combatants were killed or disabled. 

 If only one, then the victor, like Achilles, dragged the 

 body of the defeated one away in triumph, and then 

 returned to find a fresh antagonist. 



After looking on for some little while, I discovered 

 that the slaughter was not by any means so great as 

 at first sight it had appeared. Many of the apparently 

 dead were merely pretending ; they were not even 

 seriously injured. After lying for some short time 

 motionless they would rise, look around them, and walk 

 leisurely away. One interesting example of the re- 

 suscitation I presently witnessed. 



A combat had taken place between a very large ant 

 and a rather unusually small one. I did not witness 

 the combat, only the result. The small ant had fallen ; 

 the large ant was dragging away his body. I had seen 

 many apparently dead ants revive; but this poor ant, 

 I made sure, was really defunct, he looked so utterly 



