WITH ARMY ANTS ^15 



mailed segments. A mob of ants were trying 

 vainly to bite their way into this organic 

 citadel. 



For the dozens of grasshoppers, crickets, 

 roaches, beetles, spiders, ants, and harvest men, 

 there was no escape. One daddy-long-legs did 

 a pitiful dance of death. Supported on his 

 eight long legs, he stood high out of reach of 

 his assailants. He was balanced so exactly that 

 the instant a feeling antenna touched a leg, he 

 would lift it out of reach. Even when two or 

 three were simultaneously threatened, he raised 

 them, and at one time stood perfectly balanced 

 on four legs, the other four waving in air. But 

 his kismet came with a concerted rush of half a 

 dozen ants, which overbore him, and in a frac- 

 tion of time his body, with two long legs trailing 

 behind, was straddled by a small worker and 

 borne rapidly away. 



I now flattened myself on an antless area at 

 the edge of the pit and studied the field of 

 battle. In another half -hour the massacre was 

 almost over. Five double, and often quadruple, 

 columns were formed up the sandy cliffs, and 

 the terrific labor of carrying out the dead vic- 

 tims began. The pit was five feet deep, with 



