116 Rev. L. GuirpiwxG's Account of Margarodes. 
death ensues in consequence, unless immediate relief be afforded. 
Vinegar is poured down the throat, which probably dissolves 
these substances in the crop, and thus removes the distention 
they had occasioned. The astonishing quantity in the land 
puzzles me. I know of no insect sufficiently abundant to pro- 
duce them in such vast quantity. The ant and the musquito 
are the only insects whose number bears any proportion to these 
little substances." 
With the musquito they are of course in no way connected ; 
but I have every reason to believe that the animal is placed 
by a merciful Providence in the dry colonies, as a parasite to 
keep down the numbers of those little invincible and voracious 
creatures the ants, which would otherwise swarm in countless 
myriads uninjured by the rains which thin their ranks in the . 
mountainous and more rainy islands. They occur plentifully 
in the Bahamas; and, under the name of ant-eggs, are strung 
into necklaces and ornamental purses by the ladies. In the 
rainy climate of St. Vincent they have not been found ; but in 
the smaller islands of the Government, which, from the absence 
of gigantic mountain ranges, are subject to continued drought, 
these bodies are met with in abundance. On a late visit to the 
Union Island I collected a boxfull; and suspecting that others 
. had failed in tracing. the animals to maturity from. improperly 
placing them in too dry a situation, I brought them home in 
moist marl, and had soon the satisfaction to observe the insects 
which are here figured issuing from the pearls. I lament to say, 
that from the distance of this island, it may be a long time before 
I am able to obtain an animal so delicate and small in its state 
of ovum and larva; or have an opportunity of observing them 
in coitu, to ascertain whether there be any apparent difference 
in the structure of the sexes. 
] met with them most plentifully in saintly soil about stones, 
under 
3 
4 
E 3 
3 
a 
a 
