58 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
round tunnels, varying from half an inch to seven or eight 
inches in diameter, lead down through the mounds of earth; 
and many more, from some distance around, also lead under- 
neath them. At some of the holes on the mounds ants will 
be seen busily at work, bringing up little pellets of earth from 
below and casting them down on the ever-increasing mounds, 
so that its surface is nearly always fresh and new-looking. 
Standing near the mounds one sees from every point of the 
compass out-paths leading to them, all thronged with the busy 
workers carrying their leafy burdens. As far as the eye can 
distinguish their tiny forms troops upon troops of leaves are 
moving up towards the central point, and disappearing down 
the numerous tunnelled passages. The out-going, empty- 
handed hosts are partly concealed amongst the bulky burdens 
of the in-comers, and can only be distinguished by looking 
closely amongst them. ‘The ceaseless, toiling hosts impress 
one with their power, and one asks—What forests can stand 
before such invaders? how is it that vegetation is not eaten 
off the face of the earth? Surely nowhere but in the tropics, 
where the recuperative powers of Nature are immense and 
ever-active, could such devastation be withstood.”—P. 71. 
Making Ants Mad.—“ Don Francisco Velasquez informed 
me, in 1870, that he had a powder which made the ants mad, 
so that they bit and destroyed each other. He gave me a 
little of it, and it proved to be corrosive sublimate. I made 
several trials of it, and found it most efficacious in turning a 
large column of the ants; a little of it sprinkled across one of 
their paths in dry weather has a most surprising effect: as 
soon as one of the ants touches the white.powder it com- 
mences to run about wildly, and to attack any other ant it 
comes across. Ina couple of hours round balls of the ants 
will be found all biting each other, and numerous individuals 
will be seen bitten completely in two, whilst others have lost 
some of their legs or antenne. News of the commotion is 
carried to the formicarium, and huge fellows, measuring 
three-quarters of an inch in length, that only come out of the 
nest during a migration or an attack on the nest or one of the 
working columns, are seen stalking down with a determined 
air, as if they would soon right matters. As soon, however, 
as they have touched the sublimate all their stateliness leaves 
them: they rush about, their legs are seized hold of by some 
