THE INSECT WORLD. 



397 



safe from it. Sugar is especially attractive, but almost anything 

 is attacked, nothing more readily than a bone from which the 

 meat has been roughly scraped, and which is yet a little bloody. 

 It seems impossible to get rid of these creatures, because they 

 avoid poisoned food and anything that has 

 the appearance of a trap. A few specimens Fig. 452. 



may be killed, but very soon the character 

 of the mixture is recognized, and it is left 

 untouched. " Insect-powder" — pyrethrum 

 — is effective, but it is practically impossible 

 to get it everywhere, and the ants simply 

 avoid it. Carbolic acid and naphthalene are 

 both useful as repellents : the insects dislike 

 the odors intensely, and will not approach 

 these materials ; but while certain closets may Monomotium phavaonis. 

 be protected in that way, the odors are not 

 particularly desirable near food products, and are as repugnant 

 to many persons as they can possibly be to the ants them- 

 selves. The simplest method, perhaps, is mechanical destruc- 

 tion, as follows : Where meat is used every day, the bones, or 

 some of them, should be cut out before it is cooked and placed 

 in a main line of insect travel. When they become thoroughly 

 covered with hundreds or even thousands of ants, the whole mass 

 should be thrown into the fire. If this process is repeated two 

 or three times a day, a few days in succession, the ants seem to 

 be seized with a panic, and usually abandon the house com- 

 pletely. Instead of bones, a sponge dipped in sugar water and 

 loosely pressed out may be used ; or, better yet, there should be 

 two sponges. The sweetened one should be placed where the 

 ants run, and the news of its presence will spread throughout the 

 entire house in a remarkably short time. When the first sponge 

 is entirely filled with ants, the second should be prepared in the 

 same way to replace the first, which is to be taken up and put 

 into boihng water. This destroys the insects at once, and the 

 sponge can be washed out, again dipped in the sugar water, and 

 used to replace sponge number two when that is filled with in- 

 sects. Here the same effect is obtained : the insects are seized 

 with terror, and seem to realize the presence of a force that 

 they do not understand. . The sudden lessening of their numbers 



