184 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 



There are some blind or half blind species which avoid 

 light, and when their road leads them over open places they 

 cover it in with remarkable swiftness by building tunnels or 

 galleries of earth. Some, such as E. vastator or E. erratica, 

 march only by these covered ways. Bates was able to 

 follow these roads for many hundred yards, and^they were 

 built in the same way as the covered ways of the Termites, 

 only with the difference that the latter use a gummy saliva 

 for glueing the earth together, while the ants simply heap it 

 up so skilfully that it does not fall, although lacking any 

 kind of mortar. The large-headed ants here act only as 

 soldiers, defending the community against all disturbance 

 from without, as amongst the Termites. When Bates made 

 a breach in the covered ways, the small-headed ants tried 

 to mend it as quickly as possible, while the large-headed 

 ones rushed out menacingly, furiously snapping with their 

 mandibles. The species observed by McCook in North 

 America, such as the Texan cutting ants, the Camponotus 

 Pennsylvannicus, and the mound building ants in the Alleg- 

 hauies belong, according to his observations, to tke soldier 

 species, to those, namely, which keep a standing army. 



The military condition, however, is most perfectly de- 

 veloped among the so-called white ants, or Termites, living 

 in Africa, Southern Asia, South America, and Australia ; 

 these maintain just as numerous and well-disciplined an 

 army as do our large European military powers. Yet their 

 finances do not suffer as much thereby, as do those of 

 human States, nor are their swashbucklers guilty of excesses 

 against the citizens who feed them and whom they ought to 

 defend. Do not be angry, dear reader ! They are only 

 unreasoning creatures, following mere " instinct," and can- 

 not rife to the height of human perfection. 



