THEIR MODE OF FIGHTING. 165 



spectators take very little notice. But when a warlike 

 expedition is undertaken, each ant has its own place and 

 own work, and will fight to the death in obeying orders. 

 The Wood Ant seldom fights singly, issuing from the 

 nest in solid battalions, while the Eed Ant will fight 

 individually or in concert with equal alacrity. Each 

 species seems to have its own method of fighting. 



One species, Formica, exsecta, is, according to Sir J. 

 Lubbock, a very remarkable insect, attacking its larger 

 foes much as the billmen of olden days attacked knights 

 in full armour. 



"It is a delicate, not to say active species. They 

 advance in serried masses, but at close quarters they 

 bite right and left, dancing about to prevent being bitten 

 themselves. When fighting with larger species, they 

 spring on to their backs and seize them by the neck or 

 by one antennae. 



"They also have the instinct of combining in small 

 parties, three or four seizing one enemy at once, and 

 then pulling different ways, so that she, on her part, 

 cannot get at any one of her foes. One of them then 

 jumps on her back, and cuts, or rather saws, off her head. 

 In battles between this ant and the much larger Formica 

 pratensis, many of the latter may be seen, each with a 

 little F. exsecta on her back, sawing off her head from 

 behind." 



So redoubtable a fighter is this little ant, that an 

 instance was known where a single nest had established 

 at least two hundred colonies, and throughout a circle of 



