340 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



they visit, as he himself once witnessed at Cayenne. 1 But whatever may 

 be the fact as to the migrating ants of Cayenne, the Chasseur-Ants of Tri- 

 nidad would seem to migrate for the express purpose of scouring human 

 habitations for food, according to the account given by Mrs. Carmichael, 

 which presents so graphic a picture of their proceedings, that I shall give it 

 to you entire, especially as its minute and circumstantial details seem to 

 vouch for its accuracy : 



" One morning my attention was arrested at Laurel Hill by an unusual 

 number of black birds, whose appearance was foreign to me : they were 

 smaller, but not unlike an English crow ; and were perched on a calibash- 

 tree near the kitchen. I asked the house-negress, who at that moment 

 came up from the garden, what could be the cause of the appearance of 

 those black birds ? She said, ' Misses, dem be a sign of the blessing of 

 God ; dey are not de blessing, but only de sign, as we say, of God's 

 blessing. Misses, you'll see afore noontime how the ants will come and 

 clear the houses.' At this moment I was called to breakfast, and thinking 

 it was some superstitious idea of hers, I paid no further attention to it. 



" In about two hours after this, I observed an uncommon number of 

 chasseur-ants crawling about the floor of the room : my children were 

 annoyed by them, and seated themselves on a table, where their legs did 

 not communicate with the floor. The ants did not crawl upon my person, 

 but I was now surrounded by them. Shortly after this, the walls of the 

 room became covered by them ; and next they began to take possession 

 of the tables and chairs. I now thought it necessary to take refuge in an 

 adjoining room, separated only by a few ascending steps from the one we 

 occupied, and this was not accomplished without great care and generalship, 

 for had we trodden upon one we should have been summarily punished. 

 There were several ants on the top of the stair, but they were not nearly 

 so numerous as in the room we had left ; but the upper room presented a 

 singular spectacle, for not only were the floor and the walls covered like 

 the other room, but the roof was covered also. 



" The open rafters of a West India house at all times afford shelter to a 

 numerous tribe of insects, more particularly the cockroach ; but now their 

 destruction was inevitable. The chasseur-ants, as if trained for battle, 

 ascended in regular, thick files, to the rafters, and threw down the cock- 

 roaches to their comrades on the floor, who as regularly marched off with 

 the dead bodies of cockroaches, dragging them away by their united efforts 

 with amazing rapidity. Either the cockroaches were stung to death on 

 the rafters, or else the fall killed them. The ants never stopped to devour 

 their prey, but conveyed it all to their storehouses. 



" The windward windows of this room were of glass, and a battle now 

 ensued between the ants and the jack-spaniards on the panes of glass. 

 The jack-spaniard may be called the wasp of the West Indies ; it is twice 

 as large as a British wasp, and its sting is in proportion more painful : it 

 builds its nests in trees and old houses, and sometimes in the rafters of a 

 room. These jack-spaniards were not quite such easy prey as the cock- 

 roaches had been, for they used their wings, which not one cockroach had 

 attempted to do. Two jack-spaniards, hotly pursued on the window, 

 alighted on the dress of one of my children. I entreated her to sit still, 



1 Lacordaire, Introd. a VEntom. ii. 504. 



