DRIVER ANTS. 475 



capitated at seven A.M., and at half past nine next morning, 

 twenty-six and a half hours from the time of decapitation, a piece 

 of newspaper was held between the jaws, which it grasped and 

 retained with considerable force. 



" I then applied the small finger of my right hand, which it bit 

 severely; indeed, so powerful was the grasp, that the point of 

 the mandibles met beneath the cuticle. It then partly withdrew 

 one mandible, and, pointing it more perpendicularly, penetrated 

 deeper than the other, and thus at every stroke giving to the 

 mandible a direction more vertical, wounding and cutting wider 

 and deeper, precisely in the manner of the insect in possession of 

 all its parts and powers.. The sensation at each thrust was like 

 that of a pin, and equally painful ; and when the mandibles were 

 withdrawn, the blood flowed as freely. The head continued to 

 give signs of life for more than thirty-six hours after decapita- 

 tion. The body to which it belonged lived still longer, or more 

 than forty-eight hours." 



It is a very remarkable fact that the insect should be so tena- 

 cious of life under circumstances that would be instantly fatal 

 to most creatures, and yet should die suddenly under conditions 

 in which many insects live and thrive. The reader will remem- 

 ber that the direct action of the sun's rays will kill the Driver 

 Ant in less than two minutes, and yet there are ants of the same 

 country which run about freely, in the blazing sunshine, travers- 

 ing with impunity the heated ground, which blisters the bare 

 hand, and being able to secrete abundant stores of the liquid 

 which they use in making their habitation. 



In Dr. Livingstone's well-known work, there are several inter- 

 esting accounts of ants and their habits, and one anecdote bears 

 so aptly on the subject that I give it in the writer's own words. 



After describing the terrible drought at Chonuane, when the 

 River Kolobay ran dry and the fish perished, when the crocodile 

 himself was stranded and died, and the native trees could not 

 hold up their leaves, he proceeds as follows: "In the midst of 

 this dreary drought, it was wonderful to see those tiny creatures, 

 the Ants, running about with their accustomed vivacity. I put 

 the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil in the sun 

 at midday, and found the mercury to stand at 132° to 134° ; and 

 if certain beetles were placed on the surface, they only ran about 

 a few seconds and expired. 



" But this boiling heat only augmented the activity of the long- 



