FORMICID^ ANTS. 169 



due form of ecclesiastical law. What the sentence was in 

 this case, we are unable to learn. A similar case, however, 

 the historian informs us, had occurred in the Franciscan 

 Convent at Avignon, where the Ants did so much mischief 

 that a suit was instituted against them, and they were ex- 

 communicated, and ordered by the friars, in pursuance of 

 their sentence, to remove within three days to a place as- 

 signed them in the center of the earth. The Canonical 

 account gravely adds, that the Ants obeyed, and carried 

 away all their young, and all their stores.^ 



Annius writes, that an ancient city situate near the Yols- 

 cian Lake, and called Contenebra, was in times past over- 

 thrown by Ants, and that the place was thereupon commonly 

 called to his day, "the camp of the Ants."^ 



Ctesias makes mention " of a horse-pismire {i.e. the bigger 

 kind of them in hollow trees) which was fed by the Magi, 

 till hee grew to such a vast bulke as to devour two pound 

 of flesh a daye."^ 



Martial has written the following beautiful epigram on 

 an Ant inclosed in amber : "While an Ant was wandering 

 under the shade of the tree of Phaeton, a drop of amber 

 enveloped the tiny insect; thus she, who in life was disre- 

 garded, became precious by death. 



"A drop of amber from the weeping plant, 

 Fell unexpected and embalmed an Ant; 

 The little insect we so much contemn 

 Is, from a worthless Ant, become a gem."* 



It has been said, remarks Mr. Southey, and regarded as a 

 vulgar error, that Ants cannot pass over a line of chalk : the 

 fact, however, is certain. Mr. Coleridge tried the experi- 

 ment at Malta, he continues, and immediately discovered 

 tlie cause : The formic acid is so powerful, that it acts upon 

 the chalk, and the legs of the insect are burnt by the in- 

 stantaneous eflervescence !^ 



Paxamus says, that if you take some Ants and burn them, 

 you will drive away the others, as experience has taught us. 



1 Southey's Hist, of Brazil, iii. 334, note. 



2 Wanley's Wonders, ii. 507. 



•* Thom Browne's Works, ii. 837, note. 



* Martial, B. iv. 15. 



^ Southey, Iliist. of Brazil, i. G45. 



