SOME INSECT COMMUNITIES 53 



in spite of the infuriated buzzings and angry 

 swoops of the builders of the nest. Should the 

 victim be too large for convenient transportation, 

 it is at once set upon and torn into fragments, 

 and the pieces distributed amongst the worker 

 Ecitons for transit back to the nest. 



Of the handsome and ferocious little Fire Ant, 

 the formiga de fogo of the Portuguese settler, 

 which is a perfect plague when it attacks man- 

 kind, Bates gives the following graphic account 

 in the course of a description of his voyage 

 up the Tapajos : " Aveyros was deserted a few 

 years before my visit on account of this little 

 tormentor, and the inhabitants had only recently 

 returned to their houses, thinking its numbers 

 had decreased. It is a small species, of a shining 

 reddish colour, not greatly differing from the 

 common red, stinging Ant of our own country 

 (My r mica rubra), except that the pain and 

 irritation caused by its sting is much greater. 

 The soil of the whole village is undermined by 

 it : the ground is perforated with the entrances 

 to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy 

 dome occurs here and there, where the insects 

 bring their young to receive warmth near the 

 surface. The houses are overrun with them ; 

 they dispute every fragment of food with the 

 inhabitants, and destroy clothing for the sake of 

 the starch. All eatables are obliged to be sus- 

 pended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords 

 well soaked in copaiiba balsam, which is the only 

 means known of preventing them from climbing. 

 They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice; 

 if we stood for a few moments in the street, even 



