ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 173 



the field of battle ; the most frequent sight was that of two 

 dead enemies firmly locked together and with their mandibles 

 biting into each other. 



On the following day there were only individual collisions , 

 but on the third day Forel reawoke the struggle, which 

 ended two days later with the destruction of the last assail- 

 ants, although the victors had also heavy losses. Forel 

 often saw one of them maimed by a single bite through head 

 or thorax from a larger opponent. 



The battles of these same ants with the Tetramorium 

 ccespitum (turf ants) one of the strongest and most war-like 

 species belonging to the genus Myrmica are very frequent and 

 violent ; poison and sting therein play chief part, while with 

 the giant ants (Camponotus herculaneus) terrible mutilations 

 made by the mandibles are the rule. The latter ants also 

 give peculiar alarm signals at the beginning of the fight. 

 They not only touch each other very rapidly and vigorously 

 with their feelers, but also strike the ground or the wood of 

 the tree in which is their nest so sharply and quickly with 

 their abdomens that an audible noise is made. All the 

 species of Camponotus do the same. They also mutually 

 assist each other, and this is usually fatal to the ant which 

 has been seized by several of them. 



The otherwise more blood-thirsty sanguineos are less 

 quarrelsome with one another. Forel tried to incite one colony 

 of these against another by throwing down between them a 

 number of pratensis pupae. But each side busied itself with 

 the costly harvest without injuring the other ; only here 

 and there did little bickerings break out, and a few were 

 dragged to the hostile nest. The sense of the little creatures 

 shamed the tempter ! In another case the experiment 

 resulted in an alliance. Only the Amazons from different 

 nests would never form alliances, but fought to the utter- 

 most. 



Between different species war to the knife is the general 

 rule. While battle between members of the same species is 

 at first brought about with difficulty and becomes gradually 

 more vigorous, it breaks out at once decisively and bitterly 

 between different species. Every energy is set upon 

 destroying the opposing party. Alliances scarcely ever take 

 place, and are quite impracticable between distinct genera 

 and species. On the other hand truces occur, when both 



