The food of which these horrid little ants find such an abundance is, of course, the cocoons and larvæ of their unfortunate neighbours, and M. Janet gives the following account of the way in which they dispose of them: “From ten to thirty of them,” he says, “climb up on to a cocoon and cover it with little perforations which, finally, becoming confluent, enable them to reach its contents. If it contains a pupa, the legs and antennæ fall an easy prey to the mandibles of the _Solenopses_. In this case the victim is cut into, sucked, and torn into very small pieces, which the ants hasten to carry away into the interior of the nest. The operation is much more difficult in the case of a larva which has just spun its cocoon. Such a one I have seen the _Solenopses_ drag into the interior of the nest and keep working at for twenty-four hours. At the expiration of this period the larva began to look flaccid (as may be believed), and was covered with little black dots which were, sometimes, double, corresponding with the little wounds made by the mandibles of its assassins. Numbers of the latter were busy lapping up the liquid which exuded from the wounds, but it was not until thirty-six hours had elapsed that the larva was entirely devoured.”[59] This is certainly not a pleasant picture, yet, if our surmise is correct, the remote descendants of these murderous _Solenopses_ may become as harmless and as pretty in their ways as the little _Leptos_, a reflection which goes far to discount any uncomfortable feelings we might otherwise have been inclined to have in regard to the general plan or scheme of things. Thus, in nature, though occasionally a slight shadow may seem to rest upon the landscape, the next moment the very memory of it is lost in a blaze of sunlight glory.