392 ; THE INSECT WORLD. 
at a reasonable distance from the ant-hill, to observe the environs. 
When the fortress 1s unexpectedly attacked, whether by large 
insects, Coleoptera, for instance, or by the ants from a neighbour- 
ing nest, these vigilant sentinels immediately fall back and give 
the alarm to the camp, not, however, without having boldly con- 
fronted the enemy and opposed to him an honourable resistance. 
Having re-entered the nest in all haste, they precipitate them- 
selves into the passages, tapping with their antenne all the ants 
which they meet, and thus spreading the alarm in the city. 
Very soon the agitation has become general, and thousands of 
combatants sally forth from the citadel, ready to ages! the attack 
and make the enemy bite the dust. 
The possession of a flock of plant-lice is sometimes a subject 
of discord, and becomes a casus belli between two neighbouring 
ant-hills. But, usually, the war has for its object to make pri- 
soners in other nests, and to carry off part of the inhabitants as 
slaves. This is the origin of mixed ant-hills, which, independently 
of their natural founders, contain one or two foreign species, helots 
whom the conquerors have taken away from their birth-place, to 
make of them auxiliaries and slaves. In these mixed ant-hills, the 
species imported occasionally exceed in number the original popu- 
lation, as it happens sometimes in those ships which are used in 
the slave trade, and on which the slaves are often found in greater 
numbers than the sailors composing the crew. The phalanx of 
ants reduced to a state of slavery pay all sorts of attentions to 
their masters. They lick them, brush them, caress them, carry 
them on their backs, feed them—good and faithful servants that 
they are—and even rear their progeny. The masters impose on 
their slaves all sorts of work. They only reserve for themselves 
the making of war. From time to time, they undertake expeditions 
against some neighbouring ants’ nest. If they are conquered 
and come back without bringing with them any prisoners, the 
slaves or auxiliaries are sulky to them, and will not allow them 
-for some time to enter the nest. If they return, on the con- 
trary, loaded with booty, they flatter them, they givé them food, 
they relieve them of their prisoners, which they lead away into 
the interior of the fortress. The warlike tribes, however, never 
carry off any other but the larve and nymphs of workers from 
