ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 43 



to restrain their otherwise unconquerable desire to fight. 

 Nothing is more interesting than to watch this struggle of 

 two passions. If honey, of which ants are known to be 

 inordinately fond and for which they will generally leave all 

 other food, be placed on a battle field between two con- 

 tending parties, as for instance red and turf ants, some of 

 the warriors will be seen approaching and tasting it. They 

 never stay by it long, but quickly return to the fight. Some- 

 times these same ants, will turn back longingly twice or 

 thrice. 



In some races (for example, Lasius, Tetramorium) gluttony 

 conquers the love of battle. We may also sometimes observe 

 hate of an embittered foe struggling with friendship for old 

 comrades, or fear and self-sacrifice for the community con- 

 tending together in their little minds. This is true espe- 

 cially of particular individuals. One ant will let herself 

 be killed, rather than let go the pupae which she holds, 

 while another will let them fall and run away like a coward. 



The same thing is also true of particular species or 

 families. For while some are cowardly and fearful, others 

 show a fearlessness and a courage that make them a real 

 terror to other animals. " Nothing is more interesting," 

 says Forel, " than to pour out a sack full of turf-ants on to 

 a newly- mown meadow, and watch the fashion in which 

 they take possession of the new territory. All the crickets 

 fly, while the ants take possession of their holes ; the grass- 

 hoppers, ground-fleas, springtails, seek to save themselves 

 on all sides ; the spiders, chafers, staphylini, leave their prey, 

 in order not to become prey in their turn. Clumsy creatures, 

 or those who have lost their legs, or those which have just 

 emerged, are killed by the ants and torn in pieces. I have 

 seen a troup of turf-ants, which owing to the enlargement 

 of their colony were lengthening one of their tunnels, come 

 across the nest of a wasp, Vespa germanica, which had been 

 built in the ground. They promptly blocked up the opening, 

 and chased out the numerous inhabitants, not without losing 

 many of their own number. When the cockchafers prepare 

 to creep out of the earth in the spring, the turf -ants often 

 crawl into the little holes which are not yet large enough to 

 let the cockchafers pass, and kill them. Caterpillars, lob- 

 worms, crickets, larvae of every kind, fall a prey in similar 

 fashion to the different species of ants, Formica, Myrmica y 



