As The Leaders Toss Them
On One Side, The Rank And File Seize Them And Carry Them Off.
One morning I saw a party going forth on what has been supposed
to be a slave-hunting expedition.
They came to a stick, which, being inclosed
in a white-ant gallery, I knew contained numbers of this insect;
but I was surprised to see the black soldiers passing without touching it.
I lifted up the stick and broke a portion of the gallery,
and then laid it across the path in the middle of the black regiment.
The white ants, when uncovered, scampered about with great celerity,
hiding themselves under the leaves, but attracted little attention
from the black marauders till one of the leaders caught them,
and, applying his sting, laid them in an instant on one side
in a state of coma; the others then promptly seized them and rushed off.
On first observing these marauding insects at Kolobeng, I had the idea,
imbibed from a work of no less authority than Brougham's Paley,
that they seized the white ants in order to make them slaves;
but, having rescued a number of captives, I placed them aside,
and found that they never recovered from the state of insensibility
into which they had been thrown by the leaders. I supposed then
that the insensibility had been caused by the soldiers
holding the necks of the white ants too tightly with their mandibles,
as that is the way they seize them; but even the pupae which I took
from the soldier-ants, though placed in a favorable temperature,
never became developed. In addition to this, if any one examines
the orifice by which the black ant enters his barracks,
he will always find a little heap of hard heads and legs of white ants,
showing that these black ruffians are a grade lower than slave-stealers,
being actually cannibals. Elsewhere I have seen a body of them
removing their eggs from a place in which they were likely
to be flooded by the rains; I calculated their numbers to be 1260;
they carried their eggs a certain distance, then laid them down,
when others took them and carried them farther on. Every ant in the colony
seemed to be employed in this laborious occupation, yet there was not
a white slave-ant among them. One cold morning I observed
a band of another species of black ant returning each with a captive;
there could be no doubt of their cannibal propensities,
for the "brutal soldiery" had already deprived the white ants of their legs.
The fluid in the stings of this species is of an intensely acid taste.
I had often noticed the stupefaction produced by the injection of a fluid
from the sting of certain insects before. It is particularly observable
in a hymenopterous insect called the "plasterer" (`Pelopaeus Eckloni'),
which in his habits resembles somewhat the mason-bee. It is about
an inch and a quarter in length, jet black in color, and may be observed
coming into houses, carrying in its fore legs a pellet of soft plaster
about the size of a pea. When it has fixed upon a convenient spot
for its dwelling, it forms a cell about the same length as its body,
plastering the walls so as to be quite thin and smooth inside.
When this is finished, all except a round hole, it brings seven or eight
caterpillars or spiders, each of which is rendered insensible, but not killed,
by the fluid from its sting. These it deposits in the cell,
and then one of its own larvae, which, as it grows, finds food quite fresh.
The insects are in a state of coma, but the presence of vitality
prevents putridity, or that drying up which would otherwise take place
in this climate. By the time the young insect is full grown and its wings
completely developed, the food is done. It then pierces the wall of its cell
at the former door, or place last filled up by its parent,
flies off, and begins life for itself. The plasterer is a most useful insect,
as it acts as a check on the inordinate increase of caterpillars and spiders.
It may often be seen with a caterpillar or even a cricket much larger
than itself, but they lie perfectly still after the injection of chloroform,
and the plasterer, placing a row of legs on each side of the body,
uses both legs and wings in trailing the victim along.
The fluid in each case is, I suppose, designed to cause insensibility,
and likewise act as an antiseptic, the death of the victims
being without pain.
Without these black soldier-ants the country would be overrun
by the white ants; they are so extremely prolific, and nothing can exceed
the energy with which they work. They perform a most important part
in the economy of nature by burying vegetable matter as quickly
beneath the soil as the ferocious red ant does dead animal substances.
The white ant keeps generally out of sight, and works under galleries
constructed by night to screen them from the observation of birds.
At some given signal, however, I never could ascertain what,
they rush out by hundreds, and the sound of their mandibles
cutting grass into lengths may be heard like a gentle wind
murmuring through the leaves of the trees. They drag these pieces
to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work,
and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice.
They continue out of sight for perhaps a month, but they are never idle.
On one occasion, a good bundle of grass was laid down for my bed
on a spot which was quite smooth and destitute of plants.
The ants at once sounded the call to a good supply of grass.
I heard them incessantly nibbling and carrying away all that night;
and they continued all next day (Sunday), and all that night too,
with unabated energy.
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