174 



THE AQUARIUM, APRIL, 1895. 



rather cold we were compelled to bring 

 the can, for the fishes' sake, inside of 

 the car. The can, a three gallon one, 

 was barely placed, when several gentle- 

 men objected to having a passenger car 

 turned into a freight car. They wanted 

 the can on the front platform again, 

 and called for the conductor to have it 

 removed. ''What's in that can, any- 

 how? "he asked. "Live trout," was 

 our reply. You ought to have seen 

 what a change in the countenances of 

 the objecting parties this reply pro- 

 duced ! "What kind are they?" was 

 asked by two or three at once, and Ave 

 called our '"Japs" "speckled brook 

 trout," for a change. This was sufficient; 

 two gentlemen moved closer together on 

 the seat to make room for the can of 

 " trout " near them, and now every one 

 in our part of the car talked "fish." 

 One elderly gentleman, however, re- 

 marked as he left the car, pretty near 

 our destination, that-, in his opinion, 

 fish did not "belong in a passenger 

 car, trout or no trout :" to which the 

 other passengers had only a pitiful look 

 that said: "Your education has cer- 

 tainly been neglected, as far as trout 

 fishing is concerned." 



HOTBEDS MADE BY ANTS. 



In the State of Colombia there is a 

 large ant {atto cephalotcs) which causes 

 a great deal of injury to plantations. 

 It attacks and carries off indiscrimi- 

 nately all kinds of foliage, and no sort 

 of vegetation seems to come amiss to it. 

 The quantity of foliage carried off by 

 these ants is immense ; in quality it 

 may be bitter, sweet, pungent, tender, 

 or tough. Her Britannic Majesty's 

 Acting Consul, at Medellin, United 

 States of Colombia, was led to mark 

 ■ carefully the uses to which the ants put 



this mass of vegetable matter which 

 they convey to their nests, and he as- 

 certained that they employ it ta make 

 hotbeds, upon which their eggs are de- 

 posited to be hatched by the heat pro- 

 duced by the fermentation of the leaves. 

 The ants do not eat these portions for 

 food, and the larvae are fed upon a care- 

 fully selected diet. Once the brood is 

 hatched, the ants clear away the hot- 

 bed, carrying out of their nest all the 

 decomposed vegetable matter. This is 

 thrown out in heaps apart, and in the 

 large ant hills these heaps will contain 

 bushels and upward. Many efforts have 

 been made to exterminate these ants, at 

 least in the vicinity of farms or gar- 

 dens ; but where the nests occur in 

 plantings or in uncultivated grounds, all 

 attempts have failed. Our consul, Mr, 

 R. B. White, however, believes that he 

 has discovered an efficacious remedy, 

 and it was shown to him by a negro. 

 When a plantation or garden is at- 

 tacked, all one has to do is to procure 

 a quantity of the debris from the hot- 

 beds thrown out of an ant hill entirely 

 unconnected with that from which the 

 invading ants proceed. Scatter this 

 around the beds and on the ant roads, 

 and the effect is marvelous. The ants 

 seem seized with a panic ; they drop 

 their burdens instantly ; the word seems 

 passed along the roads, and empty- 

 handed the whole of the invading army 

 hurries off to its own nest. They will 

 not return to the same place for many 

 days, and even when they do they avoid 

 all spots in which traces of this, to 

 . them, offensive matter remains. The 

 smallest quantity will suffice and a 

 bushel will defend acres of ground. 

 Mr. White, in a letter to the Secretary 

 of the Zoological Society of London, 

 which is published in full in this 

 society's proceedings, declares that he 



