and tear to pieces any fledglings in the nests they reach. But they
are not as common as some writers seem to imagine; days may elapse
before their armies are encountered, and doubtless most nests are
never visited or threatened by them. In some instances it seems likely
that the birds save themselves and their young in other ways. Some
nests are inaccessible. From others it is probable that the parents
remove the young. Miller once, in Guiana, had been watching for some
days a nest of ant-wrens which contained young. Going thither one
morning, he found the tree, and the nest itself, swarming with
foraging ants. He at first thought that the fledglings had been
devoured, but he soon saw the parents, only about thirty yards off,
with food in their beaks. They were engaged in entering a dense part
of the jungle, coming out again without food in their beaks, and soon
reappearing once more with food. Miller never found their new nests,
but their actions left him certain that they were feeding their young,
which they must have themselves removed from the old nest. These ant-
wrens hover in front of and over the columns of foraging ants, feeding
not only on the other insects aroused by the ants, but on the ants
themselves. This fact has been doubted; but Miller has shot them with
the ants in their bills and in their stomachs. Dragon-flies, in
numbers, often hover over the columns, darting down at them; Miller
could not be certain he had seen them actually seizing the ants, but
this was his belief. I have myself seen these ants plunder a nest of
the dangerous and highly aggressive wasps, while the wasps buzzed
about in great excitement, but seemed unable effectively to retaliate.
I have also seen them clear a sapling tenanted by their kinsmen, the
poisonous red ants, or fire-ants; the fire-ants fought and I have no
doubt injured or killed some of their swarming and active black foes;
but the latter quickly did away with them. I have only come across
black foraging ants; but there are red species. They attack human