Chap. V. RECREATIONS OF ANTS. 
361 
in the column, and when I disturbed the line, they did 
not prance forth or show fight so eagerly as the others. 
These large-headed members of the community have 
been considered by some authors as a soldier class, 
like the similarly-armed caste in Termites; but I found 
no proof of this, at least in the present species, as they 
always seemed to be rather less pugnacious than the 
worker-minors, and their distorted jaws disabled them 
from fastening on a plane surface like the skin of an 
attacking animal. I am inclined, however, to think that 
they may act, in a less direct way, as protectors of 
the community, namely, as indigestible morsels to the 
flocks of ant-thrushes which follow the marching columns 
of these Ecitons, and are the most formidable enemies 
of the species. It is possible that the hooked and 
twisted jaws of the large -headed class may be effective 
weapons of annoyance when in the gizzards or stomachs 
of these birds, but I unfortunately omitted to ascertain 
whether this was really the fact. 
The life of these Ecitons is not all work, for I fre- 
quently saw them very leisurely employed in a way 
that looked like recreation. When this happened, the 
place was always a sunny nook in the forest. The 
main column of the army and the branch columns, at 
these times, were in their ordinary relative positions ; 
but, instead of pressing forward eagerly, and plundering 
right and left, they seemed to have been all smitten 
with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking 
slowly about, others were brushing their antennae with 
their fore-feet ; but the drollest sight was their cleaning 
one another. Here and there an ant was seen stretch- 
