d Red Ant, the
slave-hunting Amazon. Unable to rear her family, incapable of seeking
her food, of taking it even when it is within her reach, she needs
servants who feed her and undertake the duties of housekeeping. The Red
Ants make a practice of stealing children to wait on the community. They
ransack the neighbouring Ant-hills, the home of a different species;
they carry away nymphs, which soon attain maturity in the strange house
and become willing and industrious servants.

When the hot weather of June and July sets in, I often see the Amazons
leave their barracks of an afternoon and start on an expedition. The
column measures five or six yards in length. If nothing worthy of
attention be met upon the road, the ranks are fairly well maintained;
but, at the first suspicion of an Ant-hill, the vanguard halts and
deploys in a swarming throng, which is increased by the others as they
come up hurriedly. Scouts are sent out; the Amazons recognize that they
are on a wrong track; and the column forms again. It resumes its march,
crosses the garden-paths, disappears from sight in the grass, reappears
farther on, threads its way through the heaps of dead leaves, comes
out again and continues its search. At last, a nest of Black Ants is
discovered. The Red Ants hasten down to the dormitories where the nymphs
lie and soon emerge with their booty. Then we have, at the gates of the
underground city, a bewildering scrimmage between the defending
blacks and the attacking reds. The struggle is too unequal to remain
indecisive. Victory falls to the reds, who race back to their abode,
each with her prize, a swaddled nymph, dangling from her mandibles. The
reader who is not acquainted with these slave-raiding habits would be
greatly interested in the story of the Amazons. I relinquish it, with
much regret: it would take us too far from our subject, namely, the
return to the nest.

The distance covered by the nymph-stealing column varies: it all depends
on whether Black Ants are plentiful in the neighbourhood. At times,
ten or twenty yards suffice; at others, it requires fifty, a hundred or
more. I once saw the expedition go beyond the garden. The Amazons
scaled the surrounding wall, which was thirteen feet high at that point,
climbed over it and went on a little farther, into a cornfield. As
for the route taken, this is a matter of indifference to the marching
column. Bare ground, thick grass, a heap of dead leaves or stones,
brickw