322 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. X, 



the law : it was more probably, however, a champion 

 that had been decapitated in an unequal combat. At 

 another time I found three individuals that were fighting 

 with great fury, chained together by their mandibles; 

 one of these had lost two of the legs of one side, yet it 

 appeared to walk well, and was as eager to attack and 

 seize its opponents as if it was unhurt. This did not 

 look like languor or sickness."* It does not appear, 

 however, from the above instances, or from any other 

 notices upon record, that the fact of intestinal wars 

 taking place in the nests of the red ant is sufficiently 

 verified. To us it appears much more probable, if 

 Gould's theory be rejected, that these combats are more 

 of the nature of private quarrels between two or three 

 individuals, differing in no respect from those of other 

 animals, who, nevertheless, habitually live in peace with 

 each other. 



(327.) The rufous ant (Formica rufa lAn.,fig. 82.) 

 is one of the most remarkable of those which make 

 war on their own species. Messrs. 

 Kirby and Spence have given such 

 a lively abridgment of Huber's 

 original account of these proceed- 

 ings, that we shall quote their 

 words. " Figure to yourself two 

 or three of these ant cities, equal 

 in size and population, and situated 

 at about a hundred paces from 

 each other ; observe their count- 

 less numbers, equal to the popula- 

 tion of two mighty empires: the 

 whole space which separates them, 

 for the breadth of twenty four inches appears alive with 

 prodigious crowds of their inhabitants. The armies meet 

 midway between their respective habitations, and there 

 join battle : thousands of champions, mounted on 

 more elevated spots, engage in single combat, and seize 

 each other with their powerful jaws ; a s.till greater 



'* Int. to Ent. voL ii. p. 70. 



