tner as "moving by jumps of several inches at a
spring."]

But the assaults of the ants are not confined to dead animals alone,
they attack equally such small insects as they can overcome, or find
disabled by accidents or wounds; and it is not unusual to see some
hundreds of them surrounding a maimed beetle, or a bruised cockroach,
and hurrying it along in spite of its struggles. I have, on more than
one occasion, seen a contest between them and one of the viscous
ophidians, _Coecilia glutinosa_[1], a reptile resembling an enormous
earthworm, common in the Kandyan hills, of an inch in diameter, and
nearly two feet in length. It would seem as if the whole community had
been summoned and turned out for such a prodigious effort; they
surrounded their victim literally in tens of thousands, inflicting
wounds on all parts, and forcing it along towards their nest in spite of
resistance. In one instance to which I was a witness, the conflict
lasted for the latter part of a day, but towards evening the Caecilia was
completely exhausted, and in the morning it had totally disappeared,
having been carried away either whole or piecemeal by its assailants.

[Footnote 1: See ante, Pt, 1. ch. iii. p. 201]

The species I here allude to, is a very small ant, called the _Koombiya_
in Ceylon. There is a still more minute description, which frequents the
caraffes and toilet vessels, and is evidently a distinct species. A
third, probably the _Formica nidificans_ of Jerdan, is black, of the
same size as that last mentioned, and, from its colour, called the _Kalu
koombiya_ by the natives. In the houses its propensities and habits are
the same as the others; but I have observed that it frequents the trees
more profusely, forming small paper cells for its young, like miniature
wasps' nests, in which it deposits its eggs, suspending them from the
leaf of a plant.

The most formidable of all is the great red ant or Dimiya.[1] It is
particularly abundant in gardens, and on fruit trees; it constructs its
dwellings by glueing the leaves of such species as are suitable from
their shape and pliancy into hollow balls, which it lines with a kind of
transparent paper, like that manufactured by the wasp. I have watched
them at the interesting operation of forming their dwellings;--a line of
ants standing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact with
it, and hold both together with their mandibles till their companions
within attach them firml