ANTS — wars; 
73 
last turned home again by a long way round. The whole busi- 
ness looked like a promenade. But apparently different parties 
had different nests in view, while others were entirely against 
the expedition. Yet perhaps it was only a march for exercise. 
Outer obstacles do not, as a rule, hinder the Amazons when 
they are once on the march. Forel saw them wade through 
some shallow water, although many were drowned in it, and 
then march over a dusty high road, although the wind blew 
half of them away. As they returned, booty-laden, neither 
wind, nor dust, nor water could make them lay down their 
prey. They only got back with great trouble, and turned back 
again to bring fresh booty, although many lost their lives. 
The following is also quoted from Buchner’s excellent 
epitome of Forel’s observations in this connection 
The most terrible enemy of the Amazons is the sanguine 
ant (F. sanguined), which also keeps slaves, and thereby often 
comes into collision with the Amazons on their marauding ex- 
cursions. It is not equal to it in bodily strength or fighting 
capacity, but surpasses it in intelligence ; according to Forel it 
is the most intelligent of all the species of ants. If Forel, for 
instance, poured out the contents of a sack filled with a nest of 
the slave species near an Amazon nest, the Amazons apparently 
generally regarded the tumbled together heap of ants, larvse, 
pupse, earth, building materials, &c., as the dome of a hostile 
nest, and took all imaginable but useless pains to find out the 
entrances thereinto, leaving on one side for this investigation 
their only object, the carrying off the pupae ; but the sanguine 
ants under similar circumstances did not allow themselves to be 
deceived, but at once ransacked the whole heap. 
On another occasion, while a procession of Amazon 
ants was on its way to plunder a nest of F. fusca , before 
it arrived Forel poured out a sack-full of sanguine ants, 
and made a break in the nest : — 
The sanguine ants pressed in, while the fusca came out to 
defend themselves. At this moment the first Amazons arrived. 
When they saw the sanguine ants they drew back and awaited 
the main army, which appeared much disturbed at the news. 
But once united, the bold robbers rushed at their foes. The 
latter gathered together and beat back the first attack, but the 
Amazons closed up their ranks and made a second assault, which 
carried them on to the dome and into the midst of the enemy. 
These were overthrown, as well as a number of F. pratensis , 
