xl 



ground was, of course, teeming with them. One heap of 

 ants being particularly dense, I turned it over and found they 

 had killed a chameleon (C. d. dilepis), which had doubtless 

 fallen from the bush, beneath which it now lay. Nothing 

 but bones were left in the morning; the ground that lay 

 between me and the tortoises was so alive with Siafu that I 

 very regretfully turned back. Many of the tortoises would 

 be under their rockeries, from which it would be impossible 

 to get so many of them in a hurry. 



Once more, therefore, I sought the shelter of my mosquito 

 net, cast the blankets which might be harbouring foes into 

 one corner, killed a few ants on the pillows, and then sat 

 upon these in the centre of the bed and reviewed the situation. 

 The enemy column that had entered the net was wandering 

 to and fro on the ceiling of it, whilst a score or more of in- 

 dividuals were frantically rushing about on the sheet or sides 

 of the net. Armed with my entomological forceps I picked 

 these off one by one, killing them as I did so. The column 

 on the ceiling of the net was similarly disposed of — a hundred 

 or so. On the outside of the net there were still approxim- 

 ately two hundred which had been cut off from retreat by 

 the collapse of the bridge. These I dislodged by striking the 

 net sharply on the inside so that most of them fell to the floor : 

 some clung on, however, and to my disgust the workers made 

 their way through the mesh of the net — I killed one in the 

 very act of struggling through, and half-a-dozen that had 

 already done so. The big-jawed soldiers stayed without. I 

 killed the others, one by one, as they got in till I was left in 

 comparative peace, speculating whether the Psalmist had a 

 visitation of Siafu in mind when he referred to " the terror 

 by night." 



My own immediate troubles being ended I listened to the 

 sounds in the roof, which were easy of interpretation. A rat, 

 attacked, ran for its life, then paused to rid itself of its aggres- 

 sors, but the pause only gave opportunity for reinforcements 

 of the foe ; with a frightened squeak it ran on, escaped to the 

 outer roof, where it lost its foothold on the galvanised iron, 

 and rolled down, landing with a thump on the ground outside ; 

 presumably it escaped, for morning revealed no heap of bones 



