THE ENTOMOLOGICAL WONDERS OF THE TROPICS 273 



without being reminded, by their stings and bites, that they 

 consider the visit as an intrusion, while they themselves un- 

 ceremoniously invade the dwellings of man, and lay ruinous con- 

 tributions on his stores. The inconceivable number of their 

 species defies the memory of the naturalist, to whom many are 

 even still entirely unknown. From almost microscopical size 

 to an inch in length, of all colours and shades between yellow, 

 red, brown, and black, of the most various habits and stations, 

 the ants of a single tropical land would furnish study for years 

 to a zealous entomologist. Every family of plants has its peculiar 

 species, and many trees are even the exclusive dwelling-place 

 of some ant nowhere else to be found. In the scathes of leaves, 

 in the corollas of flowers, in buds and blossoms, over and under 

 the earth, in and out of doors, one meets these ubiquitous little 

 creatures, which are undoubtedly one of the great plagues of the 

 torrid zone. 



WTiile our indigenous ants cause a disagreeable burning on 

 the skin, by the secretion of a corrosive acid peculiar to the 

 race, the sting or bite of many tropical species causes the most 

 excruciating tortures. " I have no words," says Schomburgk, 

 "to describe the pain inflicted upon me by the mandibles of 

 the Ponera clavata, a large, and, fortunately, not very common 

 ant, whose long black body is beset with single hairs. Like an 

 electric shock the pain instantly shot through my whole body, 

 and soon after acquired the greatest intensity in the breast, 

 and over and under the armpits. After a few minutes I felt 

 almost completely paralysed, so that I could only with the 

 greatest difficidty, and under the most excruciating tortures, 

 totter towards the plantation, which, however, it was impossible 

 for me to reach. I was found senseless on the ground, and 

 the following day a violent wound fever ensued." 



The Triplaris Americana, a South American tree, about 

 sixty or eighty feet high, the branches of which are completely 

 hollow and transversely partitioned at regular intervals, like the 

 stems of the bamboo, is the retreat of one of the most ferocious 

 ants. Woe to the naturalist who, ignorant of the fact, endea- 

 vours to break off a shoot of the Triplaris, or only knocks against 

 the tree, for thousands will instantly issue from small round 

 lateral openings in the plant, and fall upon him with incon- 

 ceivable fury. The touch of a hot iron is not more painful 



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