Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/279

Rh upon it. The excited creatures search every cranny, and tear in pieces all the grubs they bring to light. They attack wasps'-nests, when built on low shrubs, gnawing away the paper covering to get at the larvæ, pupæ, and newly-hatched wasps, and cut every thing to tatters, regardless of the infuriated owners which are flying about them.



The life of the Ecitons is not all work, however; they seem frequently to be employed in a way that looks like recreation. This always takes place in a sunny nook. The main column of the army and the branch columns are in their ordinary relative positions; but, instead of pressing forward eagerly and plundering right and left, they seem to be smitten with a sudden fit of laziness. Some walk slowly about; others brush their antennæ with their fore-feet; but the drollest sight is their cleaning one another. Here and there an ant may be seen, stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed and washed by one or more of its comrades, who perform the task by passing the limb between the jaws and the tongue, finishing by giving the antennæ a friendly wipe. It is a curious spectacle, and well calculated to increase one's amazement at the similarity between the actions of ants and the acts of rational beings—a similarity which must have been brought about by different processes of development of the primary qualities of mind. The action of these ants looks like simple indulgence in idle amusement. Have these little creatures, then, an excess of energy, and do they expend it in mere sportiveness, like young kittens, or in idle whims, like rational beings?

.—This species differs from other Ecitons chiefly from its habit of hunting, not in columns, but in dense phalanxes consisting of myriads of individuals. A phalanx, when passing over smooth ground, occupies a space from four to six yards square. Nothing in insect-movements is more striking than this rapid march of these large compact bodies.

.—None of the foregoing kinds have eyes of the