PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 3-11 



and remain quiet. In an inconceivably short space of time, a party of ants 

 crawled upon her frock, surrounded, covered the two jack-spaniards, and 

 crawled down again to the floor, dragging off their prey, and doing the 

 child no harm. 



" From this room I went to the adjoining bed-chamber and dressing- 

 room, and found them equally in possession of the chasseurs. I opened 

 a large military chest full of linen, which had been much infested ; for I 

 was determined to take every advantage of such able hunters. I found 

 the ants already inside ; I suppose they must have got in at some opening 

 at the hinges. I pulled out the linens on the floor, and with them hun- 

 dreds of cockroaches, not one of which escaped. 



" We now left the house, and went to the chambers built at a little 

 distance ; but these also were in the same state. I next proceeded to 

 open a store-room at the end of the other house for a place of retreat; 

 but, to get the key, I had to return to the under room, where the battle 

 was now more hot than ever. The ants had commenced an attack upon 

 the rats and mice, which, strange as it may appear, were no match for 

 their apparently insignificant foes. They surrounded them as they had 

 the insect tribe, covered them over, and dragged them off with a celerity 

 and union of strength, that no one who has not watched such a scene 

 can comprehend. I did not see one rat or mouse escape, and I am sure 

 I saw a score carried off during a very short period. We next tried the 

 kitchen, for the store-room and boys' pantry were already occupied ; but 

 the kitchen was equally the field of battle, between rats, mice, cock- 

 roaches, and ants killing them. A huckster negro came up selling cakes ; 

 and seeing the uproar, and the family and servants standing out in the 

 sun, he said, ' Ah, misses, you've got the blessing of God to-day, and a 

 great blessing it is to get such a cleaning,' 



"I think it was about ten when I first observed the ants; about 

 twelve the battle was formidable ; soon after one o'clock the great strife 

 began with the rats and mice ; and about three the houses were cleared. 

 In a quarter of an hour more the ants began to decamp, and soon not one 

 was to be seen within doors. But the grass round the house was full of 

 them ; and they seemed now feasting on the remnants of their prey, 

 which had been left on the road to their nests ; and so the feasting con- 

 tinued till about four o'clock, when the black birds, who had never been 

 long absent from the calibash and poisdoux trees in the neighbourhood, 

 darted down among them, and destroyed by millions those who were too 

 sluggish to make good their retreat. By five o'clock the whole was over ; 

 before sun-down, the negro-houses, were all cleared in the same way ; and 

 they told me that they had seen the black birds hovering about the almond 

 trees close to the negro-houses, as early as seven in the morning. I never 

 saw those black birds before or since, and the negroes assured me that 

 they were never seen but at such times." 1 



I shall now relate to you some other portions of Myrmidonian History, 

 which, though perhaps not so striking and wonderful as the preceding 

 details, are not devoid of interest, and will serve to exemplify their in- 

 credible diligence, labour, and ingenuity. 



1 Mrs. Carmichael on the West Indies, quoted in Saturday Magazine, 1833, 

 p. 150. 



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