xliii 



workers' bodies were intact. I counted out a hundred corpses 

 and estimated the remainder at seven hundred, which repre- 

 sented one day-and-night's work, as the Siafu had not reached 

 the western end of the house forty-eight hours ago. Bravo 

 the Stink- Ants ! A society should be formed without delay 

 for the " Preservation of the Stink- Ant in our East African 

 Protectorates." At present their sole protection from evilly- 

 disposed persons is the bad odour emanating from a trodden - 

 on ant. 



We were fully prepared for the 5 p.m.. parade, and, as soon 

 as it was going sufficiently strong, annihilated the line all 

 along the wall with hot ashes, causing complete desertion of 

 that track. On their issuing from a hole on the verandah 

 floor, a charge of cyanide powder was put in and hot ashes 

 heaped over it. Ashes and meat-bait were used freely 

 between 8 and 11 p.m. whenever any ants appeared. Columns 

 were smothered in cold ashes, although this is somewhat of a 

 failure unless it is heaped too high for them to surmount ; for 

 though they will generally desert an ash -strewn track, they 

 will nevertheless walk a clean path through the ashes if they 

 very much wish to proceed that way. 



July 7. — ^During the night the meat-baits were untouched 

 in all rooms save one, where some three or four thousand 

 were destroyed on the single bait. Whether my efforts had 

 had anything to do with their desertion of the other rooms is 

 open to doubt, as they had consistently worked through the 

 house from east to west, taking the five rooms with their 

 respective ceilings in order, excej)t the enclosed verandah 

 (on to which all rooms led) which they visited every night. 



Whilst the interior of the house was refreshingly free from 

 the foe, the immediate surroundings were little short of 

 horrifying. On the north and west only a few thousand 

 ants, perhaps 20,000, were entering their holes in the base 

 of the house- wall. These belonged to the original force that 

 arrived four days before. Within five feet of the house on 

 the east (my attention being first attracted by the smell of 

 dying bugs), thousands were on a Sisal (Aloe) plant, which 

 harbours many creatures round its spear-protected base, 

 and these refugees were now being murdered wholesale. We 



