82 
PLANTS AND INSECTS 
abdomens become enormously distended. ’ ’ According to the naturalist 
McCook, “ these living storehouses merely retain the honey until it 
is needed by the colony during the, winter, when it is given out from 
the surcharged crops to feed the colony.” 
In West Africa are found the driver-ants, which grow to be nearly 
half an inch long. Though blind, they go about, mainly at night, in 
large “armies” that kill all the. smaller creatures overtaken. When 
they enter a village, the negroes are obliged to leave their houses as long 
as the ants remain. But when the ants are gone, soi are all rats, mice, 
lizards, cockroaches, and other vermin; for the ants catch, kill, and 
devour all these that fail to flee out of their w!ay. 
The driver ants are said to have no fixed abode, but to) move about 
from one place to another, crossing rivers by clinging to one another 
in a living chain, or bridge,, over which the others pass. When disturbed 
by floods they form into spherical masses and float until they drift ashore. 
When, in an overland journey, they are about to cross a well-trodden 
path where they are likely to be disturbed, the- soldiers cling together 
and form themselves into an arch, extending across the whole width of 
the path. Under the protection of this arch the perfect females and the 
workers bearing the larvae pass without the least exposure. So tightly 
do the soldiers cling together that they have been lifted, by means of a 
cane placed under the arch, as high as five feet above the ground with¬ 
out a single ant’s falling. 
The foraging ants, also called army-ants, which are found in Cen¬ 
tral America, have some interesting habits. They go about in large 
bodies making raids upon insects and other small animals. As they 
march forward in columns three or four yards wide, including many 
thousands of individuals, larger animals flee from before them. Insects 
try to leap away, but more often jump into the midst of the ants, and 
even the largest are soon torn to pieces. Those that seek refuge in the 
twigs are caught and pulled down; spiders, however, sometimes escape 
by letting themselves hang by a silken thread. Birds follow these 
forays, darting at the escaping insects, but never eating the ants. 
Somewhat like the driver-ants of Africa, these ants have no perma¬ 
nent home. But as a temporary dwelling-place they select some hollow 
under a log or in the ground, where great masses cling together like 
a hanging swarm of bees. As in a chamber within) a living nest, in the 
center of this mass the larvae and pupae are kept warm, and cared for 
