12 JOURNAL OP THE TRINIDAD 



the hill-side, through the leaves and undergrowth, and crossed 

 the road, and we now thought it worth while to follow it a little 

 distance and find out where it flowed to. We had not far to go, 

 only to the hollow between the buttresses of a young silk cotton* 

 tree on the other side of the path. There the ants had formed 

 their nomadic nest. The hollow was nearly full of them, all 

 clinging together, thousands upon thousands of thousands. Bees 

 swarming give a faint idea of how they looked. The ants formed 

 one solid mass, the proportions of which we could form no 

 adequate idea of. There appeared to be two or three large buckets 

 full, and when we descended the bank a little way and looked up 

 under it, we found that there were buckets full more of the 

 seething mass of savage little creatures, clinging to each other by 

 thousands of thousands and being joined every moment by 

 more thousands. Somewhere in the midst of that mass was to 

 be found the queen and the winged males which my friend wished 

 very much to obtain. We tried to burn the nest with the view 

 of finding the specimens we wanted smothered underneath the 

 embers ; but this stratagem failed and only excited the ants to 

 the greatest fury; they rushed hither and thither with widely 

 opened menacing jaws and some of them managed to get up our 

 trowser legs, so we beat a hasty retreat, defeated for the time 

 being. Having picked oft' all the ants we could find upon each 

 other we proceeded on our way and following a narrow path to 

 the left soon found ourselves on the banks of the brook at the 

 bottom of the ravine. Here the rain, which had been threatening 

 for some time, came down in earnest, and we ran for shelter to a 

 sort of shallow cave in the cliff on the opposite side, and to reach 

 which we had to scramble up an almost perpendicular wall of 

 rock. In front of the entrance to this retreat hung a number of 

 air roots belonging to the trees above, which had penetrated 

 through the fissures and crannies of the soft stone. Pendant to 

 one of these there swung a lump of moss and grass, in the midst 

 of which Ave detected the pretty eyes and sharp beak of a fly 

 catcher of a species we were not able to determine, for the 

 moment it saw it was discovered it forsook its aerial home for safer 

 quarters. The beautifully constructed nest contained three eggs, 

 which we did not care to disturb. The little mother anxious about 

 her treasures, flew back again, but finding us still there, darted oft', 

 if possible, more scared than before. Sitting at the entrance of 

 our cave we watched the antics of a number of little frogs which 

 jumped and scrambled on the rocks beneath, sometimes falling 

 down terrific precipices, and picking themselves up again as if 

 nothing had happened. They were as busy as they could 



*Eriodendron anfractuosum D. C. 



