230 JUNGLE PEACE 



lapping the abdomens in front, and they looked 

 for all the world like the riders of an old- 

 fashioned three-seated bicycle, spurting along 

 the trail. Another simile, even more vivid, 

 evoked the vision of some weirdly constructed, 

 elongated myriopod with eighteen legs. After 

 a hard fight, in the course of which I was 

 stung twice, I unseated the trio and took the 

 measuring worm away from them. As I lifted 

 it from where it had fallen, at least fifty ants 

 hurled themselves at the spot, jaws snapping, 

 trembling with violent rage. I walked ten feet 

 away and dropped the worm in the midst of 

 another column, and within an equal number of 

 seconds three new white-heads had mounted it 

 and were hustling it along — the replicas in ap- 

 pearance and method of the first team. 



Many species of stranger ants were killed and 

 carried off as food, but now and then I noted a 

 most significant exception. In three different 

 parts of the glade I saw good-sized, pale, flesh- 

 colored ants which walked unharmed in the very 

 ranks of the terrible host. Unharmed they were, 

 but not wholly above suspicion, and their prog- 

 ress was not an easy one. For every unburdened 

 ant which passed leaped at the pale one, anten- 



