84 TROPICAL NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



running over my body, and every now and then one 

 would give me a sting so sharp as to make me jump and 

 search instantly for the offender, who was usually found 

 holding on tight with his jaws, and thrusting in his sting 

 with all his might. Another genus, Pheidole, consists 

 of forest ants, living under rotten bark or in the ground, 

 and very voracious. They are brown or blackish, and are 

 remarkable for their great variety of size and form in the 

 same species, the largest having enormous heads many 

 times larger than their bodies, and being at least a 

 hundred times as bulky as the smallest individuals. 

 These great-headed ants are very sluggish and incapable 

 of keeping up with the more active small workers, 

 which often surround and drag them along as if they 

 were wounded soldiers. It is difficult to see what use 

 they can be in the colony, unless, as Mr. Bates suggests, 

 they are mere baits to be attacked by insect-eating birds, 

 and thus save their more useful companions. These ants 

 devour grubs, white ants, and other soft and helpless 

 insects, and seem to take the place of the foraging ants 

 of America and driver-ants of Africa, though they are 

 far less numerous and less destructive. An allied genus, 

 Solenopsis, consists of red ants, which, in the Moluccas, 

 frequent houses, and are a most terrible pest. They form 

 colonies underground, and work their way up through 

 the floors, devouring everything eatable. Their sting is 

 excessively painful, and some of the species are hence 

 called fire-ants. When a house is infested by them, all 

 the tables and boxes must be supported on blocks of 

 wood or stone placed in dishes of water, as even clothes 

 not newly washed are attractive to them ; and woe to the 

 poor fellow who puts on garments in the folds of which 



