TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS. 381 



minute or two, and in a short time the rest left the house 

 altogether. " 



And it is quite true, all this that Herr Jiiger has to say 

 about the ants, as we have proved time and again in our 

 provision and milk and butter closets. 



Insect-powder scattered over the shelves will keep them 

 at a respectful distance, whether the marauders be the 

 small red ants or the large brown ones, whose nippers are 

 made on the model of a lobster's, and are quite capable of 

 snipping out bits of flesh very neatly. The small ants 

 carry red-hot pincers concealed about their persons, and 

 use them on occasion, when disturbed at their meals or 

 otherwise offended ; step into one of their dwellings while 

 digging or weeding, and you will find out all about it. -' 



Nevertheless, we were quite as much annoyed with ants 

 in our Northern country home, as ever we have been in 

 our Southern. 



If you have in your store-room a barrel of sugar, and 

 the ants make a raid on it, as they will (for Southern ants 

 are not one whit more honest than Northern ones, and we 

 have seen the latter thieving sugar) , all you have to do is 

 either to sprinkle insect-powder on the floor around it, rub 

 some in a circle on the staves, or make a chalk line an inch 

 wide on the barrel, using the common granular chalk. 



Sometimes the large ants make a nice, cosy nest in a 

 little-used box, or bureau-drawer, and fill it with shapely 

 oblong eggs. Use the insect-powder among them, and 

 they will each seize an egg and start ofl* on a journey to 

 more hospitable regions. If the powder is good, they will 

 stagger and faint by the wayside — and the place that once 

 knew them shall know them no more. 



Now, as to flies : Our experience has been that they are 

 not nearly so troublesome in the Florida piney-woods home 

 as they are in most Northern homes. Of course they are 



