168 FORMICID^ — ANTS. 



Malouet, in visiting the forests of Guiana, of which he 

 has spoken in his travels into that part of the globe, per- 

 ceived in the midst of a level savanna, as far as the eye 

 could reach, a hillock which he would have attributed to 

 the hand of man, if M. de Prefontaine, who accompanied 

 him, had not informed him that, in spite of its gigantic con- 

 struction, it was the work of black Ants of the largest spe- 

 cies (most probably of the genus Ponera). He proposed 

 to conduct him, not to the Ant-hill, where both of them 

 would infallibly have been devoured, but to the road of the 

 workers. M. Malouet did not approach within more than 

 forty paces of the habitation of these insects. It had the 

 form of a pyramid truncated at one-third of its height, and 

 he estimated that its elevation might be about fifteen or 

 twenty feet, on a basis of from thirty to forty. M. de Prefon- 

 taine told him that the cultivators were obliged to abandon 

 a new establishment, when they had the misfortune to meet 

 with one of these fortresses, unless they had sufficient 

 strength to form a regular siege. This even occurred to 

 M. de Prefontaine himself on his first encampment at 

 Kourva. He was desirous of forming a second a little far- 

 ther on, and perceived upon the soil a mound of earth simi- 

 lar to that which we have just described. He caused a cir- 

 cular trench to be hollowed, which he filled with a great 

 quantity of dry wood, and, after having set fire to it in 

 every point of its circumference, he attacked the Ant-hill 

 with a train of artillery. Thus every issue was closed to 

 the hostile army, which, to escape from the invasion of the 

 flames and the shaking and plowing of the ground by the 

 cannon-balls, was obliged to traverse, in its retreat, a trench 

 filled with fire, where it was entirely cut off.^ 



The Portuguese found such prodigious numbers of Ants 

 upon their first landing at Brazil, that they called them Key 

 de Brazil, King of Brazil, a name which they now there 

 bear.^ 



Mr. Southey states, on the authority of Manoel Felix, that 

 the Red-ants devoured the cloths of the altar in the Convent 

 of S. Antonio, or S. Luiz (Maranhara, Brazil), and also 

 brought up into the church pieces of shrouds from the 

 graves ; whereupon the friars prosecuted them according to 



1 Cuv. An. Kingd. — Ins., ii. 471. 



2 rinkerton's Col. of Voy. and Trav., xiv. 716. 



