204 



AMAZON ANT, 



hedge. Some of its inhabitants were guarding the entrance, but, oil 

 discovery of an approaching army, darted forth upon the advanced 

 guard. The alarm spread at the same moment in the interior, and 

 their companions came forth in numbers from their underground resi- 

 dence. The amazon ants, the bulk of whose army lay only at the 

 distance of two paces, quickened their march to arrive at the foot of the 

 ant-hill; the whole battalion, in an instant, fell upon and overthrew 

 the negro ants, who, after a short but obstinate conflict, retired to the 

 bottom of their nest. The amazon ants now ascended the hillock, 

 collected in crowds on the summit, and took possession of the principal 

 avenues, leaving some of their companions to work an opening in the 

 side of the ant-hill with their teeth. Success crowned their enterprise, 

 and by the newly-made breach the remainder of the army entered. 

 Their sojourn was, however, of short duration, for in three or four 

 minutes they returned by the same apertures which gave them entrance, 

 each bearing off in its mouth a larva or a pupa ; they retraced the 

 route by which they had arrived, and proceeded one after another, 

 without order or regularity. The whole army might be readily distin- 

 guished in the grass by the contrast afforded by the amazon ants and 

 the white eggs and pupse they had captured. They repassed the hedge 

 and the road, in the place they had previously crossed it, and then 

 directed their course through a field of ripened corn, where I expe- 

 rienced the regret of not being able to follow them. 



" I now retraced my steps towards the scene of the recent assault, 

 aud there found a small number of negro labourers, perched upon the 

 stalks of plants, holding in their mouths the few larvae they had 

 rescued from pillage ; these they shortly carried back to their former 

 station. 



This feature, so prominent in the history of this ant, of whose name 

 I was ignorant, induced me to give them the appellation of amazon or 

 legionary ants, as being most analogous to their martial character ; which 

 denomination I still retain. 



I returned the following morning at the same hour, by the route I 

 had observed the amazon army take, in the hope of acquiring some 

 knowledge of the phenomenon of which I had been a witness, when I 

 discovered the habitation of one of these martial hordes. 



I observed on the right of the road a large ant-hill, covered with ants 

 of that species. They formed into column, set forth in a body, and fell 

 upon one of the habitations of the negro-ants, which, experiencing little 

 or no opposition, they entered. One party immediately returned, 



