rufescens. Another day my attention was struck
by about a score of the slave-makers haunting the same spot, and evidently
not in search of food; they approached and were vigorously repulsed by an
independent community of the slave species (F. fusca); sometimes as many as
three of these ants clinging to the legs of the slave-making F. sanguinea.
The latter ruthlessly killed their small opponents and carried their dead
bodies as food to their nest, twenty-nine yards distant; but they were
prevented from getting any pupae to rear as slaves. I then dug up a small
parcel of the pupae of F. fusca from another nest, and put them down on a
bare spot near the place of combat; they were eagerly seized and carried
off by the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, after all, they had been
victorious in their late combat.
At the same time I laid on the same place a small parcel of the pupae of
another species, F. flava, with a few of these little yellow ants still
clinging to the fragments of their nest. This species is sometimes, though
rarely, made into slaves, as has been described by Mr. Smith. Although so
small a species, it is very courageous, and I have seen it ferociously
attack other ants. In one instance I found to my surprise an independent
community of F. flava under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F.
sanguinea; and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little
ants attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage.
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