-* Fauna : Invertebrates 



would have bitten deeply) and swallow them ? If it can be 

 shown that any of these creatures really devour the driver 

 ant, then the Liberian Government (for example) ought to 

 take special measures to preserve immune from destruction 

 the ant-eating mammals, birds, and reptiles. Man indeed is 

 almost obliged to call around him his brother vertebrates to 

 contend with the insect hosts for mastery over the earth. 

 These arthropods are almost as alien to him in ideals and 

 development as the inhabitants of another planet. 



If I have drawn a rather fearsome picture of Liberia as 

 the home of disagreeable insects, I should like to conclude this 

 chapter by assuring my readers that in this respect it is no 

 worse than other parts of Africa : rather better than most, in 

 fact. Life is far more tolerable here owing to the relative 

 absence of mosquitoes, fleas, bugs, and ticks. 



But to make Liberia more attractive to civilised man than 

 it is at present there is nothing like agriculture and the judicious 

 thinning of the forest. It is in the dense forest that the insect 

 class has its principal stronghold and recruiting ground ; and 

 it is perhaps for this reason that the open spaces of Africa 

 very often unpromising desert or steppe to all appearance- 

 are so much more richly endowed with the higher types of 

 vertebrate life. 



859 



