54 THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



organised hives, but they are successful in the weaker 

 ones. Sometimes they act with violence, and to 

 reduce a swarm they first fall on the queen and kill 

 her with their stings. Disconcerted by her death, 

 the bees allow the pillage of their dwelling, and the 

 cells are robbed from top to bottom. In some cases 

 the deprived proprietors, in their turn carried away 

 by this insanity of rapine, even go over themselves to 

 the assailing party, and carry their own honey to the 

 house of the bandits. Henceforth they unite their 

 fortune to that of the others, and share in their easy 

 and adventurous life.^ 



Bates has given a vivid description of the armies 

 of the South American Foraging Ants {Eciton). 

 They are carnivorous hunters who march in large 

 armies, and are found on the banks of the Amazon, 

 especially in the open campos of Santarem. The 

 Eciton legionis chiefly carry off the mangled larvae 

 and pupae of other ants. They will attack the nests 

 of a bulky species of the genus Formica; they lift out 

 the bodies of these ants and tear them in pieces, as 

 they are too large for a single Eciton to carry off, 

 a number of carriers seizing each fragment. They 

 seem to" divide into parties, one party excavating 

 and the other carrying away the grains of earth to 

 a distance from the hole just sufficient to prevent 

 them rolling back into it There is, however, no 

 rigid distribution of labour, the miners sometimes 

 becoming carriers, and then again assuming the 

 office of carrying off the prey. In marching off 

 they form a broad and compact column, sixty or 

 seventy yards in length, those who may be empty- 



1 P. Huber, Recherches sur Us Mceurs des Fourmis indigenes, Paris 

 and Geneve, iSlo, chap. ix. 



