1G6 FORMICID.E ANTS. 



obliged to remove to another station in order to get rid of 

 them.i 



" Not long since," says Josselyn in his Yoyage to New 

 England, London, 1674, "winged Ants were poured down 

 upon the Lands out of the clouds in a storm betwixt Black- 

 point and Saco, where the passenger might have walkt up 

 to the Ancles in them."^ 



^yingless Ants, in swarms or armies, also migrate at par- 

 ticular seasons ; but for what purpose is not clear, except 

 to obtain better forage. In Guiana, Mr. Waterton says he 

 has met with a colony of a species of small Ant marching 

 in order, each having in its mouth a leaf; and the army ex- 

 tended three miles in length, and was six feet broad. ^ 



It is recorded by Oviedo and Herrera, that the whole 

 island of Hispaniola was almost abandoned in consequence 

 of the Sugar-Ant, Formica omnivora of Liunagus, which, 

 in 1518 and the two succeeding years, overran in such count- 

 less myriads that island, devouring all vegetation, and caus- 

 ing a famine which nearly depopulated the Spanish colony. 

 A tradition, says Schomburgk, prevails in Jamaica that the 

 town of Sevilla Nueva, which was founded by Esquivel in 

 the beginning of the sixteenth century, was entirely de- 

 serted for a similar reason. Herrera relates that, in order 

 to get rid of this fearful scourge in Hispaniola, the priests 

 caused great processions and vows to be made in honor of 

 their patron saint, St. Saturnin, and that the day of this 

 saint was celebrated with great solemnities, and the Ants in 

 consequence began to disappear. How this saint was chosen, 

 we read in Purchas's Pilgrims : " This miserie (caused by the 

 Ants) so perplexed the Spaniards, that they sought as strange 

 a remedie as was the disease, which was to chuse some Saint 

 for their Patron against the Antes. Alexander Giraldine, 

 the Bishop, having sung a solemne and Pontifical Masse, 

 after the consecration and Eleuation of the Sacrament, and 

 devout prayers made by him and the people, opened a 

 Booke in which was a Catalogue of the Saints, by lot to 

 chuse some he or she Saint, whom God should please to 

 appoint their Advocate against the Calamitie. And the 

 Lot fell vpon Saint Saturnine, whose Feast is on the nine 



1 K. and S. Introd., u 54. 



2 Josa. Vol/., p. 118. 



8 Biiird's Cyclop, of Nat. Sci. 



