ANTS — WARS. 79 ■ 



chiefly directed against the legs of its enemies, three, four, or 

 five uniting in the effort. They understand barricade fighting 

 particularly well in their large well-built dwellings, and if it 

 comes to the worst fly by subterranean passages. They are 

 feared by most ants on account of their numerical superiority. 

 Forel one day poured the contents of ten nests of pratenses in 

 front of a tree trunk inhabited by Lasius fuliginosus (jet ant). 

 The siege at once began; but the jet ants called in help from 

 the nests connected with their colony, and thick black columns 

 were at once seen coming out from the surrounding trees. The 

 pratenses were obliged to fly, and left behind them a mass of dead 

 as well as their pupae, which last were carried off by the victors 

 to their nests to be eaten. 



Battles, however, are not confined to species of ants 

 having warlike and slave-making habits. The agricultural 

 ants likewise at times wage fierce wars with one another. 

 The importance of seeds to these ants, and the consequent 

 value which they set upon them, induce the animals, 

 when supplies are scarce, to plunder each other's nests. 

 Thus Moggridge says, — 



By far the most savage and prolonged contests which I 

 have witnessed were those in which the combatants belong to 

 two different colonies of the same species. . . . The most 

 singular contests are those which are waged for seeds by A. 

 barbara, when one colony plunders the stores of an adjacent 

 nest belonging to the same species, the weaker nest making 

 prolonged though, for the most part, inefficient attempts to 

 recover their property. 



In the case of the other species of ant which I have watched 

 fighting, the strife would last but a short time — a few hours or 

 a day — but A. barbara will carry on the battle day after day 

 and week after week. I was able to devote a good deal of time 

 to watching the progi'ess of a predatory war of this kind, waged 

 by one nest of barbara against another, and which lasted for 

 forty -six days, from January 18 to March 4 ! 



I cannot of course declare positively that no cessation of 

 hostihties may have taken place during the time, but I can 

 affirm that whenever I visited the spot — and I did so on twelve 

 days, or as nearly as possible twice a week — the scene was one 

 of war and spoliation such as that which I shall now describe. 



An active train of ants, nearly resembling an ordinary 

 harvesting train, led from the entrance of ono nest to that of 

 another lower down the slope, and fifteen feet distant ; but on 



