FORMICID^ ANTS. 15 1 



that no animal could stand before them. He relates an in- 

 stance where they reduced for him one of his live sheep in 

 one night to a perfect skeleton, and that so nicely that it 

 surpassed the skill of the best anatomists.^ Du Chaillu 

 says the elephant and gorilla fly before the attack of the 

 Bashikouay-ants, and the black men run for their lives. 

 Many a time has he himself, he says, been awakened out of 

 a sleep, and obliged to rush out of his hut and into the 

 water to save his life !^ The Driver-ants^ of Western Africa, 

 A. nomma arcens, have been known to kill the Python nata- 

 lensis, the largest serpent of that part of the world. "^ 



Col. St. Clair, after a visit by a species of small Red-ants, 

 makes mention of the following instance, among others, of 

 their singular destructiveness : "I next discovered that a 

 little pet deer, which I had purchased from a negro, was 

 extremely ill. I could not discover the cause of its malady, 

 until, placing it on its legs, I observed that it would not let 

 one foot touch the ground, and, on examining it, I found, to 

 my grief, that the Red-ants had absolutely eaten a hole into 

 the bone. The poor little animal pined all that day and 

 died in the evening."^ 



Capt. Stedman relates that the Fire- ants of Surinam 

 caused a whole company of soldiers to start and jump about 

 as if scalded with boiling water ; and its nests were so 

 numerous that it was not easy to avoid them.*^ And Knox, 

 in his account of Ceylon, mentions a black Ant, called by 

 the natives Coddia or Kaddiya,^ which, he says, "bites 

 desperately, as bad as if a man were burnt by a coal of fire ; 

 but they are of a noble nature, and will not begin unless you 

 disturb them." The reason the Singhalese assign for the 

 horrible pain occasioned by their bite is curious, and is thus 

 related by Knox : "Formerly these Ants went to ask a wife 

 of the Noya, a venomous and noble kind of snake;* and be- 



1 Guinea, p. 276-; Astley's Col. of Voy. and Trav., ii. 727. 



2 Du Chaillu, p. 312 and 108. 



3 Allied to the Stinger [ota) of Yoruba, and Idzalco, "the ligliter 

 which makes one go." — T, J. Bowen. 



* Livingstone's Travels, p. 468. 

 6 St. Clair's W. Lidies, i 167-8. 

 6 Stedm. Surinam, ii. 94. 



' Of similar size and ferocity as the great Red-ant of Ceylon, the 

 Dimiya, Formica smaragdina. — Tennent, N. H. of Ceyl., p. 424. 

 s The Cobra de Capello, Naja tripudians, Merr. 



