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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



ABOUT ANTS. 

 Messrs. Editors. 



ABOUT four years ago a large, whole- 

 sale-grocery firm, doing business on 

 Strand Street, in this city, received a con- 

 signment of several barrels of onions. These 

 onions were raised by a German farmer liv- 

 ing in one of the counties lying west of the 

 Colorado River, and near the line of the 

 railroad running between Galveston and San 

 Antonio. The onions were grown in a black, 

 sticky soil, as shown by the large quantity 

 adhering to them. In some of the barrels 

 there were a great number of small black 

 ants, which were evidently brought here 

 with the onions from the same place. This 

 particular species of ant was unknown here 

 before. The Island of Galveston is mostly 

 sandy, and the ants heretofore observed 

 here were of light color. .These imported 

 colonies have increased enormously, un- 

 til there is not a counting-room on Strand 

 Street that is not literally wfested with them. 

 I am no entomologist, but it seems to me 

 they exhibit some peculiarities that would 

 greatly interest Sir John Lubbock. They 

 do not appear to be very troublesome to the 

 grocerymen not attacking sugar, cheese, 

 etc., which other small ants delight in but, 

 like a great many people, they show the 

 most decided fondness for printerh ink on a 

 newly-printed newspaper. If the morning 

 paper is laid down in the counting room on 

 a chair, table, or desk, in a few moments it 

 will be covered by countless thousands of 

 these lively little pests. They seem to ex- 

 tract something from the ink on the paper 

 of which they are excessively fond. The 

 paper itself they do not injure, and it is only 

 a freshly-printed paper that attracts them. 

 They are very active in their pursuit of fresh 

 newspapers, the moment one is thrown down 

 being the signal for hosts of them to rush 

 from the floors and walls to cover it. They 

 do not seem inclined to be quarrelsome with 

 themselves or their " two-footed rivals," un- 

 less disturbed in their favorite pastime, by 

 having the morning paper taken away from 

 them, when, in attempting to shake them 

 off, they frequently inflict some punishment 

 on the hands, thus showing that they are not 

 without the means of defensive and offen- 

 sive warfare. The book-keepers and clerks 

 have discovered that a broad chalk -line 

 drawn around the desk-legs, and repeated 

 daily, will offer an effectual barrier to their 

 ascent of the desk. This is the only pre- 

 ventive yet discovered. 



One remarkable fact I desire to call 

 attention to is this: While they have no 

 fondness for the common black writing-ink 

 that does not copy, they are exceedingly 

 fond of a variety of copying writing-ink 

 such as I am using in this letter made in 

 Paris, and called "Encre violette noire com- 

 municative." When the legs of my desk have 

 not been properly chalked., and I am writing 

 letters to correspondents, these little pests 

 will cover my paper, run over the fresh 

 writing, and frequently drag the ink on their 

 legs, " making some marks " of their own. 

 (You can see the peculiar chirography of 

 one of my little friends on the first page of 

 this letter.) Sometimes one or more will 

 run up the pen-point as it is moving over 

 the paper, and then occurs a very singular 

 phenomenon indeed : The movement of the 

 pen seems to enrage it, and it immediately 

 plunges its forceps into the thick ink, when 

 at once the ink, which was a dark-violet 

 color, changes to a bright litmus color, and 

 seems to have acquired the property of 

 " striking through " the paper, no matter if 

 of extra thickness. This change of color I 

 attribute to the formic acid the insect dis- 

 charges into the ink in its rage. In about 

 five minutes the writing changes to a dark- 

 violet again, due, I suppose, either to the 

 absorption of oxygen, the evaporation of 

 the formic acid, or some other chemical 

 change. I may send you some more items 

 of interest about these little pests, but in 

 the mean time I would be glad to know how 

 to be rid of them entirely. 



Very respectfully yours, 



L. C. Fisher. 

 Galveston, Texas, October 11, 18S0. 



A BRILLIANT METEOR. 



Messrs. Editors. 



On the evening of Wednesday, the 9 th 

 instant, I observed a very brilliant meteor, 

 which made its appearance in the south- 

 west, at an elevation of about forty degrees 

 above the horizon. Its rate of motion was 

 very slow, and it was visible fully three 

 quarters of a minute. A long bright line 

 was left in its path, and this remained visi- 

 ble from 5.27 o'clock, when I first observed 

 the meteor, until 5.45 o'clock. This streak 

 seemed to be composed of luminous vapor. 

 About five minutes after its appearance, 

 the line took a zigzag form and resembled 

 a " streak " of lightning. Its form was 



