THE DRIVER .ANT. 59 
The insects are extremely small, barely one-fifth of 
an inch in length, and are reddish in colour. 
Perhaps one of the most terrible of insects is that which 
is appropriately called the Driver Ant of Western Africa. 
This insect is a truly remarkable creature. Although it 
is to be found in vast numbers, it has never been found in 
the winged condition, and neither the male nor the female 
have as yet been discovered. The workers are uniform 
in colour, but exceedingly variable in size. Their hue 
is deep brownish black, and their length varies from 
half an inch to one line, so that the largest workers 
nearly equal the common earwig, while the smallest are 
no larger than the familiar red ant of our gardens. In 
the British Museum are specimens of the workers, which 
form a regular gradation of size, from the largest to the 
smallest. 
They are called Driver Ants, because they drive before 
them every living creature. There is not an animal that 
can withstand the Driver Ants. In their march, they 
carry destruction before them, and every beast knows in- 
stinctively that it must not cross their track. They have 
been known to destroy even the agile monkey, when their 
swarming host had once made a lodgment on its body, 
and when they enter a pigstye, they soon kill the im- 
prisoned inhabitants, whose ‘tough hides cannot protect 
them from the teeth of the Driver Ants. Fowls they 
destroy in numbers, killing in a single night all the in- 
habitants of the hen-roost, and having destroyed them, 
have a curious method of devouring them. 
The Rev. Dr. Savage, who has experimented upon these 
formidable insects, killed a fowl and gave it to the Ants, 
At first, they did not seem to pay much attention to it, 
but he soon found that they were in reality making their 
