giving orders and directing the march of the column.

This species is often met with in the forest, not in quest of one
particular form of prey, but hunting, like Eciton predator, only
spread out over a much greater space of ground. Crickets,
grasshoppers, scorpions, centipedes, wood-lice, cockroaches, and
spiders are driven out from below the fallen leaves and branches.
Many of them are caught by the ants; others that get away are
picked up by the numerous birds that accompany the ants, as
vultures follow the armies of the East. The ants send off exploring
parties up the trees, which hunt for nests of wasps, bees, and
probably birds. If they find any, they soon communicate the
intelligence to the army below, and a column is sent up immediately
to take possession of the prize. I have seen them pulling out the
larvae and pupae from the cells of a large wasp's nest, whilst the
wasps hovered about, powerless, before the multitude of the
invaders, to render any protection to their young.

I have no doubt that many birds have acquired instincts to combat
or avoid the great danger to which their young are exposed by the
attacks of these and other ants. Trogons, parrots, toucans,
mot-mots, and many other birds build in holes of trees or in the
ground, and these, with their heads ever turned to the only
entrance, are in the best possible position to pick off singly the
scouts when they approach, thus effectually preventing them from
carrying to the main army intelligence about the nest. Some of
these birds, and especially the toucans, have bills beautifully
adapted for picking up the ants before they reach the nest. Many of
the smaller birds build on the branches of the bull's-horn thorn,
which is always thickly covered with small stinging honey-eating