265 Miscellany 



taken up my abode in a si)litary Indian hut, at a height of 3000 feet, for the sake 

 of devoting a month to the exploration of that interesting mountain. The walls 

 of the hut were merely a single row of strips of palm trees, with spaces 

 between them wide enough to admit larger animals than ants. One morning, 

 soon after sunrise, the hut was suddenly filled with large blackish ants, which 

 ran nimbly about and tried their teeth on evei^thing. My chargjti proved too 

 tough for them ; but they made short work of a bunch of ripe plantains, and 

 rooted out cockroaches, spiders, and other such like denizens of a forest hut. So 

 long as they were left unmolested they avoided the human inhabitants ; but 

 when I attempted to brush them away they fell on me by hundreds, and bit and 

 stung me fiercely. I asked the Indian's wife if we had not better turn out 

 awhile and leave them to their diversions. ' Do they annoy you ? ' said she. 

 ' Why, you see it is impossible for one to work with the ants running over 

 everything,' replied I ; whereupon she filled a calabash with cold water, and 

 going to the corner of the hut where the ants still continued to stream in, she 

 devoutly crossed herself, muttering some invocation or exorcism, and sprinkled 

 the water gently over them. Then walking quietly round and round the hut, 

 she continued her aspersions on the marauders, and thereby literally so damped 

 their ardour that they began to beat a retreat, and in ten minutes not an ant was 

 to be seen. 



" Some years afterwards I was residing in a farm-house on the River Daule, 

 near Guayaquil, when I witnessed a similar invasion. The house was large, 

 of two storeys, and built chiefly of bamboo-cane, the walls being merely an 

 outer and an inner layer of cane, without plaster inside or out, so that they 

 harboured vast numbers of cockroaches, scorpions, rats, mice, bats, and even 

 snakes, although the latter abode chiefly on the roof. Notwithstanding the 

 size of the house, every room was speedily filled with the ants. The good lady 

 hastened to fasten up her fresh meat, fish, sugar, &c., in safes inaccessible 

 even to the ants ; and I was prompt to impart my experience of the efiicacy of 

 baptism by water in ridding a house of such pests. * Oh ! ' said she laughingly, 

 ' we know all that ; but let them first have time to clear the house of vermin ; 

 for if even a rat or snake be caught napping they will soon pick his bones. ' 

 They had been in the house a very little while when we heard a great commo- 

 tion inside the walls, chiefly of mice careering madly about and uttering terri- 

 fied squeals ; and the ants were allowed to remain thus, and hunt over the 

 house at will, for three days and nights, when, having exhausted their legitimate 

 game, they began to be troublesone in the kitchen and on the dinner-table, 

 ' Now,' said Dona Juanita, ' is the time for the water-cure ! ' and she set her 

 maids to sprinkle water over the visitors, who at once took the hint, gathered 

 up their scattered squadrons, reformed in column, and resumed their march. 

 Whenever their inquisitions became troublesome to myself during the three 

 days, I took the liberty to scatter a few suggestive drops among them, and it 

 always sufficed to make them turn aside ; but any attempt at a forcible eject- 

 ment they were sure to resent with tooth and tail ; and their bite and sting 

 were rather formidable, for they were large and lusty ants. For weeks after- 

 wards the squeaking of a mouse, and the whirring of a cockroach were sounds 

 unheard in that house." — The your)ial of the Linnccan Society, vol. ix.. Zoology. 

 No. 38, Dec. 13, pp. 359-60. 



