1000 The Zoologist— November, 1867. 



a plague to us in the forests, they get inside one's clothes and bite and 

 sting ; others are a more serious evil still, vegetable-feeders, which 

 will lake a fancy to the leaves of some tree, and strip every leaf otF in 

 one night ! I could not imagine why Heath had a broad, deep, ugly 

 ditch running all round his vegetable garden, when a neat rail would 

 keep out mules quite as well, until he explained to me it was in the 

 somewhat vain hope of keeping the ants out of the garden ; he 

 confessed that it had hardly any effect at all. There is one species 

 celebrated for its mining propensities ; not only does it live under- 

 ground, but it delights in making tunnels leading in every direction,, 

 to nowhere at all, two or three feet below the surface : a few years ago 

 they took possession of a cleared hill near the house, and prospered 

 so that last year Heath and his slaves made vast efforts to reduce the 

 nuisance ; they got gunpowder and brimstone and other slow-burning 

 nastinesses, and tried to smoke them out : the means were effective 

 enough in one sense, for all up and down the hill-side fifty or a 

 hundred yards from the great orifices, little threads of white smoke 

 kept rising up, showing that the whole slope was tunnelled : this year 

 the ants are worse than ever. The only effective remedy, as it seemed 

 to me, would be to let in small streams of water from the top towards 

 the base, instead of currents of smells from the base towards the top ;. 

 hut of course springs of water are rarely fouud near the tops of hills, 

 and so they escape death by drowning. 



"There are some long-jawed fellows that attack you by a jump, not 

 by a spring of their legs but of their backbone (only they have none) ; 

 they can fling themselves about a foot, and live under fallen timber 

 and such places ; they are not so cruel as the little ones. The small 

 species are my terror ; their stings are like red hot needles, and they 

 do it with such a savage will ! First they get firm hold with their jaws, 

 then they get other purchases with their feet, and then like lightning 

 they arch back their bodies and drive, with all the powers of body and 

 legs, their stings in to the very hilt ! and so cunning and hostile are 

 they, that they do not, like some others, keep hold with their mouths, 

 thus making only one red mark in the skin, till they are picked off; 

 much less do they run off having done their duty, but they go, say just 

 two inches forward, and then go through the stabbing process again. 

 On one occasion I was in very great trouble ; inadvertently I stood for 

 a moment examining the contents of my net in the midst of their run — 

 a forage expedition of the whole tribe. I did not see them, nor indeed 

 did 1 look, so intent was I on my precious beetles; when all at once 

 I felt their stiugs over a great part of my body; the whole legion had 

 walked up my boots ! the pain was really dreadful ! But happily when 

 I had changed my quarters, and thrown off in desperation half my 

 clothes, a slave youth came by, who helped me to pick the wretches 

 off iny body and clothes, and to get in order again : since that adven- 

 ture 1 have always been careful not to interrupt the social migrations 

 of ants."— p. 131. 



Edward Newman. 



