2 1 8 
STRANGE DWELLINGS . 
On the outside of the column are the officers, which are con- r| 
tinually running backwards and forwards, as if to see that their 
own portions of the column are proceeding rightly. The 
proportion of officers to workers is about five per cent., or one 
officer to twenty workers, and they are extremely conspicuous : 
on the march, their great white heads nodding up and down as 
they run along. 
One of the large workers is now before me, and a most j 
formidable insect it looks. Its head is round, smooth, and 
very large, and is armed with a pair of enormous forceps, ! 
curved almost as sharply as the horns of the chamois, and very i.j 
sharp at the points. Their length is so great, that if straightened j; 
and placed end to end, they would be longer than the head Ij 
and body together. They are beset with minute hairs, which, ’ 
when viewed under the microscope, are seen to be stiff bristles, | 
arranged in regular rings round the mandibles. The thorax | 
and abdomen are but slender, and the limbs are long, giving j 
evidence of great activity. In the dried specimen, the colour 
of the insect is yellowish-brown, becoming paler on the head, 
but when the creature is alive, the head is nearly white. The 
eyes are very minute, looking like little round dots on the side j 
of the head, and being so extremely small, that they can 
scarcely be perceived without the aid of a magnifying glass. 
The half-inch power of the microscope shows that they are 
oval and convex, but as they are set in little pits or depressions, 
they do not project beyond the head. The hexagonal com- 
pound lenses, which are generally found in insects, are not 
visible, and the eye bears a great resemblance to that of the 
spider. 
The difference in dimensions of the workers is very remark- 
able. The specimen which I have just described, measures a 
little under half an inch in length, exclusive of the limbs, while 
another specimen is barely half that length, and in general 
appearance much resembles the familiar ant, or emmet of our 1 
gardens. 
The presence of these insects may be always known by the 
numbers of pittas, or ant-thrushes, which feed much upon 
