52 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



One fact impressed us from the first : every creature aroused 

 by the ants seemed to know instinctively of the awful danger. 

 Whether through odor or sight or sound, the alarm always 

 carried its full meaning. Insects which ordinarily would es- 

 cape the collecting net by a single quick motion, here dashed 

 away with such terror that they often flew against our clothes 

 or a tree, and were hurled to the ground. Lizards took 

 shelter under our shoes or shot off like streaks of light for 

 many yards. Our presence and that of the predatory birds 

 was disregarded in the efforts to avoid the danger which 

 generations of inherited experience had made the most vivid 

 in life. 



Insects which usually feigned death as a means of escape, 

 when disturbed by these ants used all the motor organs 

 given them by nature to flee from the dreaded foe. Escape 

 seemed to be the result of accident with all wingless creatures, 

 even with those possessing good eyesight, for the first blind 

 terrified rush as often carried them to certain death in the 

 thickest of the host as it did to safety in the van or on one 

 side of the ant army. Even wings were not a surety of 

 escape. Twice I saw moths arise heavily from their hiding- 

 places with a half-dozen of the little fiends clinging to their 

 legs and wings. One was snapped up, ants and all, by a 

 big Flycatcher, and the other fell among the quartermaster's 

 brigade in the rear, where every ant within reach dropped his 

 load and hurled himself upon the newcomer. 



Here and there one might observe good-sized balls of ants 

 rolling about, and in the centre would be some hard-cased 

 beetle or other insect, who gave up only after killing and 

 maiming a score of his assailants. 



We dropped five big black ants into the midst of the 

 marauders, and witnessed a combat as thrilling as the con- 

 test between the Greeks and Persians. Four of the insects 

 alighted on a small rounded stone over which three hunting- 



