2i8 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



On the outside of the column are the officers, which are con- 

 tinually running backwards and forwards, as if to see that theii 

 own portions of the column are proceeding rightly. The 

 proportion of officers to workers is about five per cent, or one 

 officer to twenty workers, and they are extremely conspicuous 

 on the march, their great white heads nodding up and down as 

 they run along. 



One of the large workers is now before me, and a most 

 formidable insect it looks. Its head is round, smooth, and 

 very large, and is armed with a pair of enormous forceps, 

 curved almost as sharply as the horns of the chamois, and very 

 sharp at the points. Their length is so great, that if straightened 

 and placed end to end, they would be longer than the head 

 and body together. They are beset with minute hairs, which, 

 when viewed under the microscope, are seen to be stiff bristles, 

 arranged in regular rings round the mandibles. The thorax 

 and abdomen are but slender, and the limbs are long, giving 

 evidence of great activity. In the dried specimen, the colour 

 of the insect is yellowish-brown, becoming paler on the head, 

 but when the creature is alive, the head is nearly white. The 

 eyes are very minute, looking like little round dots on the side 

 of the head, and being so extremely small, that they can 

 scarcely be perceived without the aid of a magnifying glass. 

 The half-inch power of the microscope shows that they are 

 oval and convex, but as they are set in little pits or depressions, 

 they do not project beyond the head. The hexagonal com- 

 pound lenses, which are generally found in insects, are not 

 visible, and the eye bears a great resemblance to that of the 

 spider. 



The difference in dimensions of the workers is very remark- 

 able. The specimen which I have just described, measures a 

 little under half an inch in length, exclusive of the limbs, while 

 another specimen is barely half that length, and in general 

 appearance much resembles the familiar ant, or emmet of our 

 gardens. 



The presence of these insects may be always known by the 

 numbers of pittas, or ant-thrushes, which feed much upon 



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