358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were sure to be overrun with them and severely punished, for the 

 moment an ant touched the flesh he secured himself with his jaws, 

 doubled in his tail, and stung with all his might. When we were 

 seated on chairs in the evenings, in front of the house, to enjoy a 

 chat with our neighbors, we had stools to support our feet, the legs 

 of which, as well as those of the chairs, were well anointed with the 

 balsam. The cords of hammocks were obliged to be smeared in the 

 same way to prevent the ants from paying sleepers a visit." The 

 ravages of the leaf-cutting ant (Oicodona), or Saubas of the Brazilians, 

 have been already mentioned ; but it also invades houses and carries 

 off articles of food on a far wider scale than is ever done by rats or 

 mice. It is capable of carryinir off such a quantity as two bushels of 

 mandioca-meal in the course of a single night ! Unfortunately, the 

 Sauba has few enemies. The number of these depredators who fall a 

 prey to birds, spiders, wasps, tiger-beetles, etc., is too small to be of 

 any importance. The Pseudomyrma bicolor easily repels them if they 

 come to clip the leaves of the bull's-horn acacia on which it resides, 

 but it is not sufficiently numerous to pursue and destroy them. The 

 Ecitons have never been known to storm the nests of the Sauba. 

 Thus, as we often find, for the greatest mischiefs Nature provides no 

 remedy, and man must step into the breach, armed with carbolic acid 

 and corrosive sublimate. Quarterly Journal of Science. 



SKETCH OF PROFESSOR JOSEPH LE CONTE. 



THE subject of the present notice, now Professor of Geology and 

 Natural History in the University of California, bears a family 

 name that has lonij been distinsmished in American science. He was 

 descended from William Le Conte, a Huguenot, who left his native 

 city, Rouen, on account of the political and religious troubles conse- 

 quent upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, and settled 

 in the vicinity of New York. Here his ancestors continued to live 

 until about 1810, when his father, Louis Le Conte, removed to Liberty 

 County, Georgia, to take personal charge of a large inherited estate. 

 There Joseph Le Conte was born, February 2G, 1823. 



His primary education was received in a neighborhood school of 

 his native county ; and, among the ten or twelve different teacher* 

 who successively directed his education with varying success, the only 

 one whom he recognizes as having left any decided impression upon 

 his mind was Alexander H. Stephens, afterward the distinguished 

 politician. 



The germs of much of his future character and career may be 

 traced to these early boyhood days. His father Avas an ardent devotee 



