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Always before in their nomadic life there had been a goal a sanctuary of hollow tree, snug heart of bamboos surely this terrible grind must end somehow. In this crisis, even the Spirit of the Army was helpless. Along the normal paths of Eciton life he could inspire endless enthusiasm, illimitable energy, but here his material units were bound upon the wheel of their perfection of instinct.
They were excavating mines to get at the nest of a larger species of ant of the genus Formica. Some were rushing into the passages, others were seen assisting their comrades to lift out the bodies of the formicae, while others were tearing them in pieces their weight being too great for that of a single eciton. A number of carriers then seized each a fragment and carried it down the slope.
It was curious to see them crowding around the orifices of the mines, some assisting their comrades to lift out the bodies of the Formicae, and others tearing them in pieces, on account of their weight being too great for a single Eciton a number of carriers seizing each a fragment, and carrying it off down the slope.
The commonest species of foraging ants are the Eciton hamata and E. drepanophora, two kinds which resemble each other so closely that it requires attentive examination to distinguish them; yet their armies never intermingle, although moving in the same woods and often crossing each other's tracks.
In a very short space of time the information was communicated to the ants below, and a dense column rushed up to search for their prey. The Ecitons are singular amongst the ants in this respect, that they have no fixed habitations, but move on from one place to another, as they exhaust the hunting grounds around them. I think Eciton hamata does not stay more than four or five days in one place.
The two common species of ecitons are, Eciton hamata and Eciton drepanophora, which are very similar in their habits and appearance. They are of the most pugnacious character, and a person incautiously getting in their midst finds himself furiously attacked. They climb up his legs, and, holding on by their pincer-like jaws, double in their tails, and sting with all their might.
The armies of Eciton rapax are never very numerous. Eciton legionis. The Eciton legionis lives in open places, and was seen only on the sandy campos of Santarem. The movement of its hosts were, therefore, much more easy to observe than those of all other kinds, which inhabit solely the densest thickets; its sting and bite, also, were less formidable than those of other species.
They will attack the nests of a bulky species of the genus Formica; they lift out the bodies of these ants and tear them in pieces, as they are too large for a single Eciton to carry off, a number of carriers seizing each fragment.
All the Ecitons hunt in large organised bodies; but almost every species has its own special manner of hunting. Eciton rapax. One of the foragers, Eciton rapax, the giant of its genus, whose worker-majors are half-an-inch in length, hunts in single file through the forest.
Thus in Eciton, there are working and soldier neuters, with jaws and instincts extraordinarily different: in Cryptocerus, the workers of one caste alone carry a wonderful sort of shield on their heads, the use of which is quite unknown: in the Mexican Myrmecocystus, the workers of one caste never leave the nest; they are fed by the workers of another caste, and they have an enormously developed abdomen which secretes a sort of honey, supplying the place of that excreted by the aphides, or the domestic cattle as they may be called, which our European ants guard or imprison.
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