VOL. LXXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 693 



general, it could have had but small effect in considerably reducing their numbers ; 

 for on flat land it could not have happened. In hanging or hilly land, the cane 

 trash would afford great shelter, and the ants would naturally retire to their nests 

 for security, when they found their danger. 



Some have supposed, that the sugar ants, after a certain time, degenerate, 

 and become inoffensive?* and in proof of this, they say, Martinique and Barba- 

 does were freed from their bad effects without a hurricane or any other apparent 

 cause. The idea of any such extraordinary and unheard-of deviation of nature, 

 is too contemptible to deserve an answer; but the reason is obvious. The planters 

 there either abandoned their cane lands, or planted them in coffee, cocoa, cotton, 

 indigo, &c. none of which, according to the above observations, afford the ants 

 proper conveniency for the propagation of their species; and therefore their 

 numbers must have so much decreased as to re-admit the culture of the sugar- 

 cane as before. At the same time it is very probable, that this diminution might 

 have in part been owing to something of the hurricane kind; for it is well known 

 that strong squalls of wind, attended with heavy rains, are frequent in the West 

 Indies, though they do not last so long, nor are so violent, as to deserve the 

 name of a hurricane. 



All that has been said on this subject would certainly be of little or no conse- 

 quence, did it not lead to the true method of cultivating the sugar-cane on lands 

 infested with those destructive insects; in which point of view however it be- 

 comes important. If then the above doctrine be just, it follows that the whole 

 of our attention must be turned to the destruction of the nests of these ants, 

 and consequently the breeding ants with their eggs or young brood. In order to 

 effect this, all trees * and fences, under the roots of which these ants commonly 

 take their residence, should first be grubbed out: particularly lime fences, which 

 are very common in Grenada, and which generally suffered from the ants before 

 the canes appeared in the least injured. After which the canes should be stumped 

 out with care, and the stools burnt as soon as possible, together with the field 

 trash, or the dried leaves and tops of the canes, to prevent the ants from making 

 their escape to new quarters. The best way of doing this would probably be, to 

 gather the field trash together in considerable heaps, and to throw the stools as 

 soon as dug out of the ground into them, and immediately apply fire. By this 

 means multitudes must be destroyed; for the field trash, when dry, burns with 

 great rapidity. The land should then be ploughed or hoe-ploughed twice, or 

 once at least, in the wettest season of the year, to admit the rains, before it is 

 hoed for planting the cane: by these means these insects might be so much 

 reduced in number as at least to secure a good plant cane. 



* Particular fruit trees may probalily be preseiTed, without detriment, by carefully removing the 

 earth from about tlieir roots, destroying the ants' nests, and afterwards replacing either the same or 

 new earth. — Orig. 



