Chap. Y. 
BLIND ANTS. 
363 
the summits of all the lower trees, searching every leaf 
to its apex, and whenever they encounter a mass of de- 
caying 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 variously-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 skir- 
mishers 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 facetted 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. Con- 
necting 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 expeditions like the rest of its tribe, and 
