Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/71

 It may be that unusual exertions are necessitated by some exceptional demands made by the condition of the larvæ of the winged male and female ants, and I have observed that these latter appear at very various periods. Thus I have seen winged males and females in the nests of barbara on November 10, December 6, February 2, and March 10; and in those of structor on February 23, 29, March 13, and April 6.

Though structor and barbara make seed collecting the business of their lives, they will, at least in times of scarcity, eagerly devour animal food if it happen to fall in their way, and in the harvesting trains a few ants may occasionally be seen carrying small dead insects and the like. Once I threw a dead grasshopper down close to a nest of barbara; it was immediately seized upon, and—after strenuous efforts had been made to dismember it above ground, some ants straining back the legs and wings, while others rushed in to gnaw at the muscles where the tension was greatest,—carried down below. On the following morning the wings of the grasshopper were to be seen on the rubbish heap in front of the nest. Dead house-flies and the larvæ of bees or wasps were at times readily devoured by my captive ants (barbara). I have also seen large numbers of structors engaged in picking the bones of a dead lizard, and was once a witness of the following singular contest between a soft-bodied, smooth, greyish caterpillar, exactly an inch in length, and two medium-sized barbara ants. The ants were mere pigmies in comparison of their prey, for as such I believe they regarded the caterpillar, but they gripped its soft body with set mandibles, showing the most savage determination not to loose their hold.

When I first detected the group the war was being