152 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



tants while plundering the nest. The surviving rufilarbes 

 returned after the robbery and brought up new progeny ; 

 but thirteen days later the Amazons again reaped a rich 

 harvest from the same nest. The Amazon army often severs 

 itself into two separate divisions when there is not enough 

 for both to do at the same spot. Sometimes one division 

 finds something and the other nothing, and they then re- 

 unite. If any obstacle be placed in their way they try to 

 overcome it, in doing which some leave the main army, lose 

 themselves, and only find their way home again with diffi- 

 culty. Forel has tried to establish the normal frequency of 

 expeditions, and found that a colony watched by himself for 

 a space of thirty days sent out no less than forty-four 

 marauding excursions. Of these about eight and twenty 

 were completely, nine partially, and the remainder not at all 

 successful. He four times saw the army divide into two. 

 Half the expeditions were levelled against the rujibarbes, half 

 against the jfwscee. On an average a successful expedition 

 would bring back to the colony a thousand pupae or larvas. 

 On the whole, the number of future slaves stolen by a 

 strong colony during a favorable summer may be reckoned 

 at forty thousand ! 



The internecine battles which occasionally break out 

 among the Amazons themselves are naturally the most cruel. 

 They tear each other to pieces with incredible fury, and 

 knots of five or six individuals which have pierced each 

 other may be seen rolling over each other on the ground, 

 it being impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. 

 Civil wars among men also are known to be the most 

 embittered and the most bloody. 



