ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 183 



without either vanguard or rearguard. Order was main- 

 tained instead by single ants, running constantly backwards 

 and forwards on both sides of the column, keeping up a kind 

 of mutual understanding. These " officers " were seen to 

 communicate with those marching in rank by touching them 

 with their feelers. When Bates broke the procession or 

 took an ant away the news of the fact reached the end of 

 the army very rapidly and a retreat began. All the small- 

 headed workers carried in their mouths pieces of white crickets 

 whose nests they had plundered. The large-headed ants, 

 whose shining white heads made them easily recognisable, 

 never carried anything, but, as already said, ran outside the 

 procession, like subalterns in a marching regiment and at 

 regular distances from each other. Yet it appeared to 

 Bates as though they were less warlike than their working 

 comrades, and owing to their thick heads and curved man- 

 dibles they were also less active. Perhaps they only act as 

 directors or overseers. Perhaps also as riding horses, if an 

 observation of Bastian (" Travels," 294) quoted by Perty 

 be accurate ; Bastian says that he saw in Siam an army of 

 black ants accompanied by soldiers, and that some of the 

 former now and then left the ranks, sprang on the backs of 

 the much larger soldiers, and trotted up and down the pro- 

 cession on them like officers, after which they again fell into 

 the ranks!?? 



The Ecitons are not always working and marching ; they 

 also take rest and refreshment. They halt on sunny spots 

 in the forest, clean themselves or each other by wiping their 

 antennae with their fore-legs, or drawing their antennas and 

 legs through mouth and mandibles, and then walking slowly 

 about or playing with each other like young lambs or 

 puppies. 



Eciton predator, a small black-red species, very common 

 round Ega, does r.ot hunt in columns but in thick masses, com- 

 posed of myriads of ants, looking like a stream of dark-red 

 liquid. They search every spot on their road most closely for 

 animal food, and tear their victims in pieces in order to 

 cany them away. Their armies often occupy a space of 

 from four to six square yards, and single groups break off 

 from the sides, like the skirmishers of sharpshooters of a 

 human army, returning to the main body when they have 

 obtained their object. 



N2 



