Prof. 0. Heer on the House Ant of Madeira, 223 



great enemy to young chickens, and makes it in many places 

 very difficult to rear them. But still more dangerous, according 

 to Dr. Delacour, are some of the wood-ants. In the year 1834, 

 he says, a young man of respectable family, resting under a tree 

 on the way from Tampico to Mexico, was attacked by the ants 

 and completely eaten up. On the following day nothing was 

 found but his skeleton, with the clothes. A similar accident he 

 relates also to have happened in the year 1838 ; nay, he had once 

 himself nearly fallen a victim to these creatures. In a forest near 

 Turpan he had been leaning for a few minutes against the trunk of 

 a tree, when all at once he was so violently bitten in all parts of 

 the body, that he would have sunk down under the violence of 

 the pain had not two of his hunting companions come up, 

 stripped off immediately his clothes, and freed him from his 

 enemies. In Paraguay, also, a species [OdontomacJius) is found, 

 which, when it makes its appearance, puts the inhabitants there 

 into fear and terror. According to Rengger (^ Reise nach 

 Paraguay,' S. 262) it appears all at once in great companies, and 

 attacks men as well as beasts; crickets, spiders, grasshoppers 

 are immediately torn by them in pieces. I have, says Dr. 

 Rengger, seen mice, covered with these insects, leave their hole 

 in torture ; young mice, which have been eaten up by them in 

 their nest ; lizards, and even snakes, flying before them. They 

 attack people in their sleep, and gnaw them till the pain awakens 

 them. Dr. Rengger saw a drunken mulatto whose eyebrows, 

 partly during his own presence, as well as eyelashes, these beasts 

 entirely eat off, and also gnawed the skin of his face to the quick. 

 Two of his patients were attacked by these creatures in their 

 bed, and one of them died soon after, partly in consequence of 

 the fright. 



In tropical Africa, also, certain ants occur which prove ex- 

 tremely troublesome to man. The most exact information we 

 possess about them is that afforded by Mr. Savage concerning 

 the Driver-ant [Anomma arcens, Westw.), which is found on the 

 west coast of Africa. It is a little black ant, with very sharp 

 and pointed fangs ; and the neuters also present two forms, one 

 smaller (the labourers) and another larger (the soldiers). They 

 have no fixed dwelling, but seek their lodging in shallow hollows 

 under roots of trees, overhanging rocks, and such like, where 

 they find shade. The direct rays of the sun being fatal to them, 

 they only come out on cloudy days and by night. If surprised 

 by the sun at their work, they build over their path a vault with 

 earth, which they glue together with their saliva. At other 

 times the soldiers form a vault over the path for the shelter of 

 the labourers. At the rainy season, if their places of abode are 



