ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 181 



even snakes, fly before the advancing foe. Just as little 

 have I had the opportunity of establishing the carrying off 

 of stranger larv<e to bring up as workers, although I have 

 been struck with a difference in size and color." 



We have here again to thank the English traveller Bates 

 from whom we have already borrowed the account of the 

 Brazilian Sa-itbas for the most complete accounts of these 

 remarkable creatures." The Sa-ubas are of ten confused with the 

 Ecitons, although their habits are very different and although 

 the two species belong to quite distinct groups of ants. The 

 Indians, who are very careful not to be caught by these 

 foraging-ants when journeying through the woods, call them 

 the Tauocas. Bates learned to distinguish ten distinct species 

 of which eight were before unknown, each species having a 

 special way of marching. In Ega [Brazil, near the 

 Amazon. TR.] the woods swarm with their hosts. An 

 interesting meeting of two armies of Sa-ubas and an Eciton 

 species (E. Canad.) in Guiana near the Sinamari river is 

 described by Var (in Brehm, " Animal Life," IX., p. 269). 



The contrast between soldiers and workers, or workers 

 major and workers minor, as Bates names the two classes, 

 varies much in different species, and is greatest in the 

 species E. hamata, erratica, and vastator, while, among other 

 species (a* E. rapax, E. legionis, etc.) the soldiers work just 

 the same as the ordinary neuters. All the Eciton species 

 are hunting animals, and they all hunt together in large 

 armies, although each species has its own particular method. 

 E. rapax, the soldiers of which are balf-an-inch long, hunts 

 in small troops and marches in small trains through the 

 woods to rob the nest of another ant of the genus Myrniica. 

 Bates often saw the mutilated bodies of the latter dragged 

 away by the robbers. E. legionis also robs the ants of other 

 species, and drags its slain enemies home to devour, after it 

 has divided their bodies into two or more pieces, they being 

 too heavy for a single robber to carry. In dragging their 

 enemies out of their mined passages Bates saw how some 

 dug a shaft, while others stood above to take the dug-out 

 earth from their companions and carry it away far enough 

 to prevent it from rolling again into the shaft. Here we 

 again find that division of labor which appears everywhere 

 to be a principle of work among the industrious ant nation, 

 and has doubtless much contributed to the perfection of 



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