1 68 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



thirty yards off, with food in their beaks. They were 

 engaged in entering a dense part of the jungle, coming 

 out again without food in their beaks, and soon reap- 

 pearing once more with food. Miller never found their 

 new nests, but their actions left him certain that they 

 were feeding their young, which they must have them- 

 selves removed from the old nest. These ant-wrens hover 

 in front of and over the columns of foraging ants, feed- 

 ing not only on the other insects aroused by the ants, but 

 on the ants themselves. This fact -has been doubted ; but 

 Miller has shot them with the ants in their bills and in 

 their stomachs. Dragon-flies, in numbers, often hover 

 over the columns, darting down at them; Miller could 

 not be certain he had seen them actually seizing the ants, 

 but this was his belief. I have myself seen these ants 

 plunder a nest of the dangerous and highly aggressive 

 wasps, while the wasps buzzed about in great excitement, 

 but seemed unable effectively to retaliate. I have also 

 seen them clear a sapling tenanted by their kinsmen, the 

 poisonous red ants, or fire-ants ; the fire-ants fought and 

 I have no doubt injured or killed some of their swarming 

 and active black foes; but the latter quickly did away 

 with them. I have only come across black foraging ants ; 

 but there are red species. They attack human beings 

 precisely as they attack all animals, and precipitate flight 

 is the only resort. 



Around our camp here butterflies of gorgeous color- 

 ing swarmed, and there were many fungi as delicately 

 shaped and tinted as flowers. The scents in the woods 

 were wonderful. There were many whippoorwills, or 

 rather Brazilian birds related to them; they uttered at 



