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Updated: April 30, 2025
The cardinal bird and the ocellated turkey must not be forgotten. Here may be found the leaf-cutting ants, which store the leaf particles in order to grow a fungus on, and which they are very particular shall be neither too damp nor too dry. Also another ant, the Polyergus Rufescens, a pure slave-hunter, absolutely dependent on its slaves for all the comforts of life and being even fed by them.
I shall do nothing of the kind; for here, to my knowledge, is a contradictory and very significant result. Among the treasures of my harmas-laboratory, I place in the first rank an Ant-hill of Polyergus rufescens, the celebrated Red Ant, the slave-hunting Amazon.
The Polyergus thus laden flee as fast as possible, escaping as well as they can from the bereaved parents, who endeavour to save their offspring. The band returns to the nest by the same road that it came, although not the shortest, for these insects seem to lack the sense of direction and are guided by smell, so that they have to retrace all the windings of the road.
At last the ants regain their household. The slaves, warned of the return of the victorious army, rush out to meet it and relieve the arrivals of their burdens, some in their zeal even carrying at the same time both the master and his burden. The nymphs transported into the ant-hill are henceforth cared for by their fellow-slaves; the Polyergus do not trouble themselves further. Wars of the ants.
It is not a question of brutally seizing a prey to be devoured immediately. The captured animal must be carefully managed, carried away alive and in such a condition that it has not yet known a free life, and can accustom itself to new conditions. When the Polyergus or Amazon ants desire to increase their band of slaves, one first remarks extreme excitement in the neighbourhood of the nest.
They have also complicated personal services towards the Polyergus. They bring them food, lick off the dust from their hairs, clean them, carry them from one place to another, if there is need to emigrate, although they themselves are much smaller. The masters, by force of losing interest in work, lose also their votes when it is a question of taking a resolution concerning the whole colony.
The master in future need not trouble to work, for he possesses a tool capable of doing everything as well as himself, since by means of language he can easily impress his will on the acts of the other; a domestic animal is only an auxiliary, the slave entirely replaces his owner in every labour. Several species of ants thus obtain slaves. The best known of these is the Polyergus rufescens.
The Polyergus avoid introducing into their houses adults who would not become reconciled to the loss of liberty, and would prefer to die rather than work for others. They carry off the larvæ of Formica fusca and Formica cunicularia.
There are no leaders, or at any rate no permanent leaders. We see neither kings nor generals. The expeditionary armies of Polyergus rufescens, which may vary from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand ants, act in obedience to streams of influence which appear to emanate from small and scattered groups, sometimes in the van and sometimes in the rear.
Always and everywhere there has been a prejudiced insistence on his defects; we perceive them so easily because they are an exaggeration of our own; but he also possesses qualities of the first order. As an example of flight arranged with intelligence, we have already seen how the Formica fusca profits by the difficulty experienced by the Polyergus in climbing.
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