In the open

by Stanton Davis Kirkham

On the fourth day the slavers began kidnapping the blacks themselves and carrying them unharmed to the nest. Quite often I found them carrying individuals of their own species. These may have been deserters or they may have been ants from some other community, who, learning of the raid, thought to be present at the final sack and perhaps share in the spoils. A still more puzzling thing was the fact that some few red ants bore negroes in the wrong direction,—that is, from the red back to the black colony. I have noticed on former occasions that the raid may become thus complicated toward its close as if the ants, drunk with victory, were beside themselves.

On the 7th of August the raid was directed against a new negro colony some distance further down the road. It was carried on with something like the usual vigor until the 25th of the month, when it apparently ceased. The first nests of blacks, in which some few ants remained, were no longer molested, though the besieging army passed them on its way to the field of operation. Thus the series of raids of this one colony of red ants continued for nearly a month.

I found no less than three other raids in progress at this time, among widely separated communities, so that the marauding spirit was contagious among them and spread like the war fever. The red warriors were everywhere in arms and bent on pillage. One hill, being free from grass, offered a clear view of what was going on at the doorway at least. Here the black workers—the slaves of a former raid—were carrying out bits of gravel, while the train of red ants entered, bearing the stolen pupæ from the pillaged nest. The red ants were at this time bringing some large queen pupæ which they had great difficulty in getting over the ground. As they approached the entrance, the black workers deposited their bits of gravel and ran to their assistance. Several blacks which remained near the entrance seemed to act thus as porters, while others about the top of the hill were engaged as laborers.

Stopping work at about five o'clock, the train of red ants melted away before one's eyes. They dropped their task very much as a gang of men do when the whistle blows. Their day at that sort of labor was therefore only about seven or eight hours, as if some of the principles of Labor Union were in vogue among these brigands. They would kidnap only so many hours a day. The slaves, however, kept at work until dusk. Perhaps the red ants continued inside the nest, disposing of the pupæ captured during the day, but they brought in none after five o'clock.

Three days had elapsed from the close of this raid when, for some reason, the entire colony of red ants deserted the hill, carrying the newly captured slaves and their pupæ with them. They took up their abode under a cement walk, an unusual place for red ants, and a week of incessant labor was consumed in carrying the black ants and pupæ to the new site. This was, then, a bona fide exodus of an entire community.

Under the cement walk to which the colony of red ants had migrated with their slaves were numerous nests of small brown ants. These swarmed one sultry afternoon, and as they came pouring out of the cracks in the walk and clustered on the surface, the fierce red ants fell upon them with fury, slaying hundreds and leaving most of the bodies on the walk, though many were carried away. This I took to be a veritable hunting expedition. Like some other "sportsmen," they appeared to kill more than they wanted, and the little heaps of winged dead were left to be scattered by a gust of wind.

On the following day a new chapter opened in the history of this remarkable colony, for I found them attacking a large negro colony some distance away. Contrary to custom, the blacks defended their nests with spirit, and at first seemed to hold their own. Not divining what was to follow, I was surprised to find the red ants carrying away no pupæ. But the next day it was made plain enough, for the red ants appeared in a compact column bearing pupæ and slaves, which but a week before they had deposited under the walk, and which they were now moving for the third time. Was this a second exodus or had the move to the walk been merely an expedient until they should find a more suitable place? Without further ado they invaded the nest, and four distinct colonies (the red ants held slaves of a previous year), one red and three black, with all larvæ and pupæ and some eggs, were thus housed together. One may imagine the feelings of the unfortunate community on finding not only an invading army of freebooters, but that some thousands of their own cousins, children and all, were come bag and baggage to live with them.

Now the marching column passed close by the nests of the little brown ants which had been their hunting-ground of the few past days. They were too engrossed in carrying pupæ to follow the chase, but I found three of their slaves posted by some small holes in the cement through which the brown ants left their nests. These negroes remained near the opening, and, as the brown ants appeared, would reach over the edge and pull one forth which was soon crushed and tossed aside. During the several hours that I watched them the three slaves remained so engaged. From time to time they would run about among the wounded, and picking up one here or there, apparently give it a nip.

This final move occupied some eight days, and nothing further transpired in the history of this colony,—that is, above ground. The war fever subsided as suddenly as it had arisen, and the erstwhile warriors were perhaps become peaceful educators of the slaves now being born into captivity with only some vague instinct of freedom, some race memory handed down from the halcyon days before the advent of the red Tartar.

If the sluggard is to go to the ant, then let it not be to the red ant, nor again to the slave, but to some Syrian species known to Solomon, which stored up provender for the winter, or to the little brown ant which herds the aphid. Huber relates that he found the slave-making ant of Europe (P. rufescens) unable to feed itself, so that, if isolated, it would miserably starve in the midst of plenty. Not to such an ant, then, should the sluggard go, but to that wise yellow species which, declares Lubbock, actually brought in and cared for the eggs of an aphid through the winter, and carried out the young aphids in the spring to their proper food plant. Certainly should we ever attain to the dignity of wings, there will be no occasion to emulate the ant, which, being born into that freedom, tears them from its body, the rest of its days to crawl upon the earth.