mere sportsmen, who had not the training to make them understand even
what it was desirable to observe. Nowadays there is a growing
proportion of big-game hunters, of sportsmen, who are of the
Schilling, Selous, and Shiras type. These men do work of capital value
for science. The mere big-game butcher is tending to disappear as a
type. On the other hand, the big-game hunter who is a good observer, a
good field naturalist, occupies at present a more important position
than ever before, and it is now recognized that he can do work which
the closest naturalist cannot do. The big-game hunter of this type and
the outdoors, faunal naturalist, the student of the life-histories of
big mammals, have open to them in South America a wonderful field in
which to work.

The fire-ants, of which I have above spoken, are generally found on a
species of small tree or sapling, with a greenish trunk. They bend the
whole body as they bite, the tail and head being thrust downward. A
few seconds after the bite the poison causes considerable pain; later
it may make a tiny festering sore. There is certainly the most
extraordinary diversity in the traits by which nature achieves the
perpetuation of species. Among the warrior and predaceous insects the
prowess is in some cases of such type as to render the possessor
practically immune from danger. In other cases the condition of its
exercise may normally be the sacrifice of the life of the possessor.
There are wasps that prey on formidable fighting spiders, which yet
instinctively so handle themselves that the prey practically never
succeeds in either defending itself or retaliating, being captured and
paralyzed with unerring efficiency and with entire security to the
wasp. The wasp's safety is absolute. On the other hand, these fighting
ants, including the soldiers even among the termites, are frantically
eager for a success which generally means their annihilation; the