SLAVE-MAKING ANTS. 



ground, about three inches in width. The 

 line has to converge here in order to go 

 through, and sometimes considerable confu- 

 sion seems to prevail, for more congregate 

 than can pass through readily. It seems 

 strange that they do not go between the 

 pickets, for they are thickly scattered 011 

 the board just beneath. They soon pass 

 out of my sight after going under the fence. 

 In about three hours they begin to return 

 with larvae and pupa). Evidently they are 

 having a battle with the blacks (F.fusca), 

 in which many are still engaged. Every 

 little while a red warrior comes bringing a 

 black and red soldier locked together. The 

 black is dead, and the red crippled and un- 

 able to free himself from his foe, and so they 

 are taken together to the nest. This looks 

 as if these red marauders were trying to 

 take care of their wounded soldiers; for I 

 have never seen them take a dead black 

 ant to the nest except when it was locked 

 to one of their own soldiers. This battle is 

 simply a repetition of the one on the 1st of 

 July. 



On the 23d of the month the red warriors 

 attack a different species of black ant, larger 

 and more robust than F.fusca. This* proves 

 to be a very large colony. The nest is amou g 



