214 Prof. 0. Heer on the House Ant of Madeira. 



and often quit the fly when it makes very active exertions to 

 shake off its assailants. I have never seen the labourers do so. 

 Sometimes they cannot, indeed, hold the fly fast, as when it is 

 on a smooth wall or polished table ; but they do not therefore 

 let go their hold with their pincers, but remain clinging to the 

 fly's legs when it flies away. When it again settles, the ant 

 tries again to hold it, and, with the help of its companions 

 hastening up, to master it. I often shut up flies and ants 

 together in glasses, in order to observe this battle of the ants and 

 flies ; and have frequently had opportunity to satisfy myself with 

 what extraordinary obstinacy* the labourers pursued the flies 

 buzzing about, and how so insignificant a wingless little creature 

 could master a winged one about a hundred times bigger. 

 General Hardwicke relates, that the ants in India are the worst 

 enemies of the Termites (the so-called White Ants) ; those also 

 of Brazil are known to clear the houses of these dangerous 

 guests. With what keenness our little ant attacks the Termites, 

 I have more than once had occasion to observe. I had procured 

 a great number of Termites, and had placed them, with the pieces 

 of wood in which they lived, in a tin box, which was closed with 

 a lid. The ants however managed to get into the box through 

 a small chink, and within two hours the box was swarming with 

 ants, which had destroyed nearly the whole of the Termites, 

 amounting to a couple of hundred. But it is still much more 

 extraordinary that even grasshoppers cannot withstand them. I 

 had in a box half-a-dozen specimens of the Cape Grasshopper 

 {Gryllus capensis, L.), which is abundant in Madeira, in order 

 to observe their habits and their mode of chirp. To my sur- 

 prise, I soon discovered that whole troops of ants had crept into 

 the box, furnished as it was with little air-holes, and had attacked 

 the grasshoppers. These were hopping restlessly about the box, 

 and had also bitten and killed whole masses of ants, so that the 

 bottom of the box was quite covered with their nibbled remnants; 

 but at last the grasshoppers were forced to yield to hostile num- 

 bers, and, with the exception of the horny portions, were com- 

 pletely devoured. How should we be astonished to see an 

 animal of the size of a mouse hunt elephants, and master them ; 

 and yet a grasshopper in proportion to our ant is bigger than an 

 elephant ! We can but be grateful to these ants for living in 

 continual warfare with the flies, and other troublesome inmates 

 of our houses. But they attack also useful insects. I had 



* We have observed also the same obstinacy in our own ants, which 

 will often rather let themselves be torn in pieces than release an object into 

 which they have once fixed their jaws. I once saw an ant {Formica fusca) 

 that had seized by the leg a great courser-beetle {Carabus hortensis), 

 which, in spite of all its eflForts, could not free itself. 



