The white-heads, twice as large, were the strong men of the community, putting all their activity into the labor, shouldering, pushing, dragging, lifting, singly or in unison. These persons had powerful jaws, but jaws which were stout and scissor-edged. The largest of the white-heads were armed with reaping-hooks, long inwardly-pronged jaws, curved like the tushes of ancient mammoths, too specialized for carrying loads, but well adapted for defense of the most powerful character. Yet, as we shall see, even these were not too proud to work, when occasion demanded it. But their jaws were so enormous that they had to carry themselves very erect, and they could not make quite as good time as the other castes. All had reddish brown abdomens, with darker thoraxes and white or black heads. These heads bulged on each side like the domes of observatories. Exactly in the center of each dome, looking like the jet-black head of a tiny pin, was the single remaining facet of the eye, the degenerate residue of the hundreds which were present in their ancestors, and which the perfect males and females still possess and look through. Even this single eye is a sham, for its optic nerve dies out before the brain ganglion is reached; so we come to the astounding realization that these ants are totally blind, and carry on all their activities through the sense or senses residing in those marvelous quivering antennæ. Here are beings spending all their lives in ceaseless changing activities, meeting and coping with constantly new conditions, yet wholly blind. Their sense of smell dominates their judgment of substance, and the moment an army ant reached my moccasin he sank jaws and sting deep into the fabric as instinctively and instantly as when he executed the same manoeuvers more effectively on my hand. Keeping this handicap in mind, the achievements of these little creatures assumed a still greater significance, and with renewed interest and appreciation I again surveyed the scene in the amphitheater before me. When the majority of the pit victims had been slain, the process of carrying them up to the surface began. The hordes of ravening ants resolved themselves, as I have said, into five distinct columns of traffic which, inch by inch, fought for a footing up three of the four sides. Half of the bottom of the pit was a sort of flat table-land several inches higher than the rest, and the first thing the ants did was to carry all their booty to this steppe, in pieces or bodily, some of the unfortunate creatures still protesting weakly as they were dragged along. In fifteen minutes the lowest part of the pit bottom was deserted, and after much hesitation I vaulted down and found a footing reasonably safe from attack.