ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 151 



off appeared not to have understood it and remained quiet 

 But they also ran rapidly up when they saw the general 

 commotion. The procession moved off towards a nest of 

 the/wsca, but before it arrived Forel had poured out on it a 

 sackful of sanguine ants kept ready, and had made a breach 

 in the nest. The sanguine ants pressed in, while thefuscce 

 came out to defend.themselves. At this moment the first 

 Amazons arrived. When they saw the sanguine ants they 

 drew back and awaited the main army, which appeared much 

 disturbed at the news. But once united, the bold robbers 

 rushed at their foes. The latter gathered together and beat 

 back the first attack, but the Amazons closed up their ranks 

 and made a second assault which carried them on to the 

 dome and into the midst of the enemy. These were over- 

 thrown, as well as a number of F. pratensis, which Forel at 

 this moment poured out on the nest. The conquerors 

 delayed for a moment on the dome after their victory, and 

 then entered the nest to bring out a little of the valuable 

 booty. A few Amazons which were mad with anger did not 

 return with the main army, but went on slaughtering blindly 

 among the conquered and the fugitives of the three species, 

 fusca, pratensis, and sanguined. 



The ravished mfibarbes once became so desperate at their 

 overthrow that they followed the robbers to their own nest, 

 and the latter had some trouble in defending it. The rufi- 

 barbes let themselves be killed by hundreds, and really seemed 

 as though they courted death. A small number of the 

 Amazons also sank under the bites of their enemies. The 

 nest contained slaves of the rufibarbis species, which on this 

 emergency fought actively against their own race. There 

 were also slaves of the species fusca, so that the nest included 

 three different species of ants. 



The same nest is often revisited many times on the same day 

 or at different periods until either there is no more to steal, 

 or the plundered folk have hit upon better mode of defence. 

 A column which was in the act of going back to such a plun- 

 dered nest turned when half-way there, and halted, apparently 

 on no other ground than because it had met the rearguard 

 of the army, and had learned that the nest was exhausted, 

 and that there was nothing more to be had there (Forel, loc. 

 cit., p. 318). The robbers then went off to a rujibarbis nest 

 which was in the neighborhood, and killed half the inhabi- 



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