394 THE INSECT WOELD. 



the ant-hills they plunder. These young captives get used to 

 their kidnappers : brought up in fear of their masters, they never 

 think of abandoning them. 



Two species constitute the warrior tribes which form societies 

 mixed with the species they reduce to slavery. They are the 

 Russet ant (Fig. 368) and the Blood-red ant (Fig. 369). They 



Fig 368. Kusset Ants (Polyerus rufescens) . 



always attack the nests of the Ashy-black (Formica fusca) and 

 the Miners. The Russet ant has mandibles made for war ; they 

 appear cut out for struggling and fighting. The Blood-red ants 

 are less ferocious. They work themselves, and make none of those 



Fig. 369. Blood-red Ant (Formica sanguinec/). 



sweeping raids by which the Russet ants depopulate the neigh- 

 bouring ant-hills. 



What Peter Huber has done for bees, Francis Huber, his son, 

 has for the ants. It is from Francis Huber that we borrow the 

 description which it remains for us to give, of the habits of ants 

 in times of war. He thus relates one of these expeditions, of which 

 he was a witness : " On the 17th of June, 1804," says he, "as I 

 was walking in the environs of Geneva, between four and five in 

 the afternoon, I saw at my feet a legion of largish russet ants 

 crossing the road. They were marching in a body with rapidity, 

 their troop occupied a space of from eight to ten feet long by three 

 or four inches wide ; in a few minutes they had entirely evacuated 

 the road ; they penetrated through a very thick hedge and went 

 into a meadow, whither I followed them. They wound their way 

 along the turf without straying, and their column remained always 

 continuous, in spite of the obstacles which they had to surmount. 



