8 



feet. There is, in ant communities, a regular division of labour, 

 some are foragers only, and provide food, others nurse and feed the 

 larvae and carry them about, some which are armed with strong 

 biting jaws, or mandibles, are the soldiers and do all the j&ghting, 

 others again are solely engaged in capturing slaves. It is an 

 instructive exemplification of the demoralizing influence of slavery 

 to observe the complete extinction of all the nobler qualities, and 

 the abject state of dependence on their slaves exhibited by the 

 slave -making ants. The most notable example of this state of 

 things is furnished by the Polyergus Rufescens, a large reddish 

 brown ant, which is entirely dependent on the services of its 

 captured slaves, indeed without their ministrations, they would die 

 of starvation, even though surrounded by plenty. They are fed, 

 cleaned, and carried about by their devoted attendants ; under this 

 demoralizing treatment they have gradually degenerated, and have 

 lost their natural and nobler instincts, they no longer care for their 

 offspring, have lost the power of building, are indifferent to friends 

 or strangers, and are quite unable to forage for food, or even to eat 

 it unless it is actually put in their mouths by their slaves ; even 

 their bodily structures have deteriorated, the mandibles have lost 

 their teeth, and are mere nippers and useless except for fighting 

 purposes, though they are then formidable weapons. The method 

 of fighting is peculiar but effective ; if sufficiently provoked, by a 

 strange ant biting its leg, for example, it will jump on its back, and 

 either make its powerful and pointed mandibles meet in its adver- 

 sary's brain, or seizing it by the root of the neck will deliberately 

 saw its enemy's head off, in which case its adversary usually lets go 

 its hold, but by no means necessarily, for a bull dog is a mere trifler 

 in tenacity, compared with an ant Once having closed their jaws 

 not even death will unclose them, it is literally a case of lock-jaw, 

 and an ant may frequently be seen walking about with the head of 

 an enemy firmly fixed on to one of its legs. This curious tenacity 

 M. Mocquery tells us, is utilized by the South American Indians, 

 who hold the edges of a wound close together, and then get an 

 ant to bite through the two lips, after which they snip off its head. 

 M. Mocquery says he has seen natives with wounds thus held 

 together by as many as eight or ten ants' heads. It is a moot point 

 how far ants are actuated by feelings of friendship. I mean of course 

 for members of their own nest, for every stranger is necessarily an 

 enemy, and as such to be driven away or killed. They adopt tne 

 Lancashire doctrine, ' con amore,' and if they see a stranger they 

 invariably " heave arf a brick at him." Many observers have tried 

 to solve the problem by smearing ants with treacle, drowning them 

 in water, burying them under earth or stones, and such like playful 

 devices, and seeing if they were rescued by friends. Mr. Romaneq 



