6q2 philosophical transactions. [anno 1790. 



of the bodies of dying or dead animals, were instantly covered with them. In 

 the year 1780, many of the sugar estates which had been first infested with these 

 ants had been either abandoned, or put into other kinds of produce, principally 

 cotton ; which, as above observed, do not afford conveniency for their nests. In 

 consequence, the ants had there so much decreased in number, that the culti- 

 vation of sugar had again begun to be re-assumed. But it was very different in 

 those plantations which had but lately been attacked, and were still in sugar. At 

 Duquesne particularly at that time they were pernicious in the highest degree, 

 spreading themselves on all sides with great rapidity, when a sudden stop was 

 put to their progress by the hurricane which happened near the middle of October 

 that year. How this was effected may be explained by attending to the above 

 observations. 



From what has been said it appears, that a dry situation, so as to exclude the 

 ordinary rains from their nests or cells, appropriated for the reception of their 

 eggs or young brood, is absolutely necessary; but that these situations, however 

 well calculated for the usual weather, could not afford this protection from rain 

 during the hurricane, may be easily conceived. When by the violence of the 

 tempest heavy pieces of artillery were removed from their places, and houses and 

 sugar-works levelled with the ground, there can be no doubt that trees and every 

 thing growing above ground must have greatly suffered. This was the case. 

 Great numbers of trees and plants, which resist commonly the ordinary winds, 

 were torn out by the root. The canes were universally either lodged or twisted 

 about as if by a whirlwind, or torn out of the ground altogether. In the latter 

 case, the breeding ants, with their progeny, must have been exposed to inevit- 

 able destruction from the deluge of rain which fell at the same time. The number 

 of canes however, thus torn out of the ground, could not have been adequate to 

 the sudden diminution of the sugar ants ; but it is easy to conceive that the roots 

 of canes which remained on the ground, and the earth about them, were so agi- 

 tated and shaken, and at the same time the ants' nests were so broken open, or 

 injured by the violence of the wind, as to admit the torrents of rain accompanying 

 it. Probably therefore the principal destruction of these ants must have been 

 thus effected. 



Two circumstances tended to facilitate this happy effect. Many of the roots 

 of the canes infected, as above observed, were either dead or rotten, so as not to 

 be capable of making the same resistance to the wind as those in perfect health. 

 And this hurricane happened so very late as the month of October, when the 

 canes are always so high above ground as to give the wind sufficient hold of them, 

 which at an earlier period would not have been the case. That many of the cane 

 ants were swept off by the torrents of rain into the rivers and ravines, and thus 

 perished, cannot be doubted ; but if we consider the obstacles to this being very 



