HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 249 



buds of the orange, immature figs, and the floral organs of 

 the cotton pay a heavy toll to these insects. Garden seeds 

 also, in variety, are removed before they have germinated ; 

 for seeds of lettuce these insects show a special predilection. 



Turning, for the moment, from the plant world, we find 

 that the animal world is no less favoured by the Argentine 

 ant. Among bees these insects are especially destructive, 

 and their appearance, in appreciable numbers, is always 

 the signal for the abandonment of bee-keeping. The nests 

 of sitting hens possess a particular attraction, and a broken 

 egg attracts the ants in such numbers as to cause the hen 

 to forsake her nest; even newly hatched chicks are 

 frequently attacked by such a numerous host as to rapidly 

 succumb. Wild birds, too, suffer in the same way, and 

 many young birds are thus destroyed, the ubiquitous 

 English sparrow alone appearing to survive the ordeal 

 unscathed. Even this lengthy indictment does not exhaust 

 the activities of the Argentine ant, for it is slowly but 

 surely annihilating a beneficial American native species 

 known as the " fire ant," Solenopsis geminata, which is 

 valued on account of the fact that it destroys vast numbers 

 of the immature cotton-boll weevils. 



As a probable, though as yet unconvicted, carrier of 

 disease the Argentine ant should be carefully watched. 

 Attracted by the odours common to such places, it is a 

 frequent visitor to sick-rooms, and it has actually been 

 seen busily carrying away the sputum of a negro who 

 was suffering from tuberculosis. Such a pest, in fact, has 

 the ant become in parts of Louisiana, that the value of 

 land depends to a considerable extent on its presence or 

 absence. 



For the benefit of that considerable section of the public 

 who maintain that every living thing serves some useful 

 purpose, and in fairness to the insect itself, it must be 

 said to have a few good points. In the poorer districts of 

 New Orleans the ant has completely exterminated the bed 



