412 th£ ants. 



their expence, the injury did not go urjrevenged * 

 for thousands immediately threw themselves upon 

 us, and gave us intolerable pain with their stings^ 

 especially those which took possession of our necks 

 and hair, from whence they were not easily driven. 

 Their sting was scarcely less painful than that of a 

 bee ; but, except it was repeated, the pain did not 

 last more than a minute. 



" Another sort are quite black, and their opera- 

 tions and manner of life are not less extraordinary. 

 Their habitations are the inside of the branches of a 

 tree, which they contrive to excavate by working 

 out the pith almost to the extremity of the slen- 

 derest twig ,; the tree at the same time flourishing 

 as it it had no such inmate. When we first found 

 the tree, we gathered some of the branches, and 

 were scarcely less astonished than we should have 

 been to find that we had profaned a consecrated 

 grove, where every tree upon being wounded gave 

 signs of life ; for we were instantly covered with le- 

 gions of these animals, swarming trom every broken 

 bough, and inflicting their stings with incessant vio- 

 lence. 



" A third kind we found nested in the root of a 

 plant, which grows on the bark of trees in the 

 manner of misletoe, and which they had perforated 

 for that use. This root is commonly as big as a 

 large turnip, and sometimes much bigger : when we 

 cut it, we found it intersected by innumerable wind- 

 ing passages, all filled with these animals, by which, 

 however, the vegetation of the plant did not appear 

 to have suffered any injury. We never cut one of 



