104 " NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



learned which party was victorious, nor what the cause of 

 the war ; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had 

 my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the strug- 

 gle, the ferocity and carnage of a human battle before my 

 door." 



7. In another respect ants show their kinship to the 

 human. Some ant tribes make a business of capturing and 

 holding slaves. At the head of the slave-makers are the 

 little red ants, known as the Amazon ants. They set about 

 their raids in a systematic manner, always starting at night- 

 fall. Their victims are usually the industrious little miner 

 ants. When they have issued from their abode, the Ama- 

 zons array themselves in serried columns, and their army 

 takes its way to the ants' nest which they are about to de- 

 spoil. In vain do the warriors of the beleaguered city seek 

 to bar the entrance ; in spite of all such efforts the others 

 penetrate into the very heart of the place, and pry into all 

 the compartments in order to choose their victims, the 

 larvae and nymphs, this latter being the name given to the 

 larva? after they have spun their cocoons, whence they are 

 to emerge perfect insects. The workers which oppose those 

 raids are simply thrown down ; they ace not made prison- 

 ers, because they would adapt themselves with difficulty to 

 the yoke ; the assailants want only young individuals which 

 they can mold to their will. 



8. When the place is completely sacked, each conqueror 

 takes a nymph or larva delicately between its teeth and 

 prepares to return. Those who can not find nymphs or 

 larva;, carry off the mutilated dead bodies of their enemies 

 in order to feed on them. Then the whole army, laden 

 with booty, and sometimes stretching out in a line of a 

 hundred and fifty feet in length, triumphantly regains its 

 city in the same order as at its departure. 



0. As soon as the young ants torn from their homes 

 reach the abode of their spoilers, the slaves already there 



