BLIND ANTS 



477 



conclusion that the ants were engaged merely in play- 

 was irresistible. 



Eciton prcedator. — This is a small dark-reddish species, 

 very similar to the common red stinging-ant of England. 

 It differs from all other Ecitons in its habit of hunting, 

 not in columns, but in dense phalanxes consisting of 

 myriads of individuals, and was first met with at Ega, 

 where it is very common. Nothing in insect movements 

 is more striking than the rapid march of these large and 

 compact bodies. Wherever they pass all the rest of the 

 animal world is thrown into a state of alarm. They stream 

 along the ground and climb to the summits of all the 

 lower trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and whenever 

 they encounter a mass of decaying vegetable matter, 

 where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other 

 Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of 

 shining and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over 

 the surface, looking like a flood of dark-red liquid. They 

 soon penetrate every part of the confused heap, and then, 

 gathering together again in marching order, onward they 

 move. All soft-bodied and inactive insects fall an easy 

 prey to them, and, like other Ecitons, they tear their 

 victims in pieces for facility of carriage. A phalanx of 

 this species, when passing over a tract of smooth ground, 

 occupies a space of from four to six square yards ; on 

 examining the ants closely they are seen to move, not 

 altogether in one straightforward direction, but in vari- 

 ously-spreading contiguous columns, now separating a 

 little from the general mass, now re-uniting with it. The 

 margins of the phalanx spread out at times like a cloud 

 of skirmishers from the flanks of an army. I was never 

 able to find the hive of this species. 



Blind Ecitons. — I will now give a short account of the 

 blind species of Eciton. None of the foregoing kinds 

 have eyes of the faceted or compound structure such as 

 are usual in insects, and which ordinary ants (Formica) 

 are furnished with, but all are provided with organs of 

 vision composed each of a single lens. Connecting them 

 with the utterly blind species of the genus, is a very stout- 

 limbed Eciton, the E. crassicornis, whose eyes are sunk 

 in rather deep sockets. This ant goes on foraging ex- 

 peditions like the rest of its tribe, and attacks even the 

 nests of other stinging species (Myrmica), but it avoids 

 the light, moving always in concealment under leaves 



