316 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



X 



A CURIOUS INSECT. 



IN the Angola country there is found a very singular insect, 

 which inhabits trees of the fig family. Seven or eight of these 

 small bugs cluster around a spot, generally on a small branch of 

 the tree, and there keep up a constant distillation of a clear fluid 

 which, dropping to the ground, forms a little puddle below. If 

 a vessel is placed under them in the evening it will contain three 

 or four pints of fluid in the morning. Naturalists assert that the 

 water thus obtained is really the tree sap which these insects, by 

 a process they do not attempt to explain, draw from the tree, 

 but Livingstone, after making many experiments, denies this, 

 and says the fluid is undoubtedly obtained by a condensation of 

 the atmosphere, but he does not undertake to explain how it is 

 done. 



AFRICAN ANTS. 



AT Tola Mungongo, about four hundred miles east of Loanda, 

 Livingstone's attention was called to a peculiar red ant that 

 infests that part of the country. He accidentally trod upon one 

 of their nests, and hardly an instant seemed to elapse before a 

 simultaneous attack was made on various parts of his body, up 

 the trousers' legs from below and on his neck and breast above. 

 The bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and the only 

 means of ridding himself of them was by hurriedly removing his 

 clothing and picking them off one by one. It is astonishing how 

 such small bodies can contain such an amount of ill-nature. They 

 not only bite, but twist themselves round after the mandibles are 

 inserted, to produce laceration and pain, more than would be 

 effected by the simple bite. They are very useful in consuming 

 the dead animal matter of the country, and when they visit 

 human habitations they clean them entirely of the destructive 

 white 'ants and other vermin. The severity of their attacks is 

 greatly increased by their vast numbers, and rats, mice, lizards, 

 and even the great python , when in a state of surfeit from recent 

 feeding^ fall victims to their fierce onslaught. When an ox is 

 slaughtered the natives are compelled to build fires around the 

 carcass to prevent the red ants from devouring it. 



