120 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
except in matters of detail., all the species of Ecitons have 
much the same habits. Mr. Bates records an interesting 
observation which he made on one of the moving columns 
of this species. He says : 6 When I interfered with the 
column or abstracted an individual from it, news of the 
disturbance was quickly communicated to a distance of 
several yards to the rear, and the column at that point 
commenced retreating.’ The main column is in this 
species narrower, viz., ‘ from four to six deep,’ but extends 
to a great length, viz., half a mile or more. It was this 
species of Eciton that the same naturalist describes as en- 
joying periods of leisure and recreation in the 6 sunny 
nooks of the forest.’ 
Next we have to consider E. prcedator , of which the 
same observer writes : — 
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 tne 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 en- 
counter 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 con- 
fused 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, occu- 
pies a space of from four to six square yards • on examining 
the ants closely they are seen to move, not all together in one 
straightforward direction, but in variously spreading contiguous 
columns, now separating a little from the general mass, now 
reuniting with it. The margins of the phalanx spread out at 
times like a cloud of skirmishers from the flanks of an army 
l was never able to find the hive of this species. 
