in ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 281 



my table, in my bed, and all over my body. Luckily, they 

 were diurnal, so that on sweeping out my bed at night I 

 could get on pretty well ; but during the day I could always 

 feel some of them running over my body, and every now and 

 then one would give me a sting so sharp as to make me jump 

 and search instantly for the offender, who was usually found 

 holding on tight with his jaws and thrusting in his sting with 

 all his might. Another genus, Pheidole, consists of forest 

 ants, living under rotten bark or in the ground, and very 

 voracious. They are brown or blackish, and are remarkable 

 for their great variety of size and form in the same species, 

 the largest having enormous heads many times larger than 

 their bodies, and being at least a hundred times as bulky as 

 the smallest individuals. These great-headed ants are very 

 sluggish and incapable of keeping up with the more active 

 small workers, which often surround and drag them along as 

 if they were wounded soldiers. It is difficult to see what use 

 they can be in the colony, unless, as Mr. Bates suggests, they 

 are mere baits to be attacked by insect-eating birds, and thus 

 save their more useful companions. These ants devour grubs, 

 white ants, and other soft and helpless insects, and seem to 

 take the place of the foraging ants of America and driver 

 ants of Africa, though they are far less numerous and less 

 destructive. An allied genus, Solenopsis, consists of red ants, 

 which, in the Moluccas, frequent houses, and are a most 

 terrible pest. They form colonies underground, and work 

 their way up through the floors, devouring everything eat- 

 able. Their sting is excessively painful, and some of the 

 species are hence called fire-ants. When a house is infested 

 by them, all the tables and boxes must be supported on 

 blocks of wood or stone placed in dishes of water, as even 

 clothes njot newly washed are attractive to them ; and woe to 

 the poor fellow who puts on garments in the folds of which 

 a dozen of these ants are lodged. It is very difficult to 

 preserve bird skins or other specimens of natural history 

 where these ants abound, as they gnaw away the skin round 

 the eyes and the base of the bill, and if a specimen is laid 

 down for even half an hour in an unprotected place it will 

 be ruined. I remember once entering a native house to rest 

 and eat my lunch ; and having a large tin collecting-box full 



