THE ARMY ANTS' HOME TOWN 89 



reverts by way of contrast to the tiny ghosts 

 of springtails flitting silently among the terrible 

 living chambers of the army ants. 



On the following morning I expected to 

 achieve still greater intimacy in the lives of the 

 mummy soldier embryos ; but at dawn every trace 

 of nesting swarm, larvae, pupae and soldiers was 

 gone. A few dead workers were being already 

 carried off by small ants which never would have 

 dared approach them in life. A big blue mor- 

 pho butterfly flapped slowly past out of the jun- 

 gle, and in its wake came the distant notes 

 high and sharp of the white-fronted antbirds; 

 and I knew that the legionaries were again 

 abroad, radiating on their silent, dynamic paths 

 of life from some new temporary nest deep in 

 he jungle. 



