ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 179 



The soldier-class among European ants vanishes in com- 

 parison with those among their relations in non-Euro- 

 pean and tropical countries, wherein they far surpass their 

 European brethren in size and strength. As a striking type 

 of these may be selected a species belonging to the genus 

 Eciton, the South American visiting, driver or foraging ant, 

 whose habits much resemble those of the already described 

 "West African hunting or driver ants. According to Peters 

 (loc. cit. p. 58) these animals come in endless files out of the 

 desert and again disappear thei'ein. On either side of the 

 column, soldiers distinguished by their large heads and jaws 

 run backwards and forwards, keeping the procession in order 

 and on the right road. Their march is checked by nothing, 

 not even by water. They fear nothing and attack the 

 largest and the smallest animals with the greatest courage. 

 The inhabitants are warned of their coming by the arrival of 

 the ant-eating birds (Grallaria and Formicivora). And they 

 are not unwelcome, for they do no harm to plants and 

 destroy all injurious insects, reptiles and mammalia. So 

 when the birds appear, the people quit their dwellings into 

 which the ants enter from all sides. They penetrate every- 

 where, into all holes and corners in floors, walls, and roofs, 

 and the whole house is soon cleared of all the insects in- 

 jurious in the tropics, such as wasps, moths, mosquitos, 

 millipedes, spiders and scorpions, and also of snakes, mice 

 and rats ; nothing escapes them, and this done, often after 

 great losses, their army proceeds on its way. 



An eye-witness, Herr H. Kreplin of Heidemiihl (Station 

 Ducherow) who lived for nearly twenty years in South 

 America as an engineer and had often the opportunity of 

 seeing the driver ants in the virgin forests there, writes as 

 follows to the author on May 10, 1876 : 



" The first sight of this nation on the march is strik- 

 ing to those accustomed to observe as well as to ordinary 

 workers. The train moves forwards in a column of two or 

 three inches in width, with a regularity and order which is 

 astonishing when we consider the length of the procession 

 and the extraordinary difficulties of the forest ground. If 

 the travellers are more closely scanned they will be found to 

 be of different sizes and colors. The ants marching in pro- 

 cession are about 7mm. long and are dark brown. They 

 carry the larvae (pupae ?) of the household fast gripped by 



