18 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



yet they have not so far become in any marked 

 way degenerate. 



The European species, Polyergns rufescens, was 

 first recognized as a slave-owner by the Swiss 

 entomologist Pierre Huber (in 1810) ; his fine ob- 

 servations were extended by his fellow-countryman 

 Auguste Forel, also working on the shores of the 

 Lake of Geneva; and now Professor Emery has 

 added to the story. The American Amazons 

 have been best studied by Professor W. M. 

 Wheeler. 1 The Amazon workers and queens have 

 jaws well-suited for killing but ill-suited for burrow- 

 ing, or obtaining food, or tending the young. They 

 cannot dig, but to beg and to steal they are not 

 ashamed. They are militarist aristocrats who will 

 not soil their hands with toil. As Professor Wheeler 

 puts it : " While in the home nest they sit about in 

 stolid idleness or pass the long hours begging the 

 slaves for food or cleaning themselves and burnish- 

 ing their ruddy armor, but when outside the nest 

 on one of their predatory expeditions they display 

 a dazzling courage and capacity for concerted action 

 compared with which the raids of the 'sanguinary 

 ants' resemble the clumsy efforts of a lot of un- 

 trained militia." But they have paid for their 

 combative accomplishments dearly, for they cannot 

 live without their auxiliaries or hosts or slaves. 

 We use all these words because no one of them 

 alone will serve to denote the strange association. 



1 See his fascinating and reliable book Ants (Columbia 

 University Series). 



