41(3 THE SUGAR-ANT. 



sequently do not afford juices fit for making sugar, 

 either in any quantity or of any tolerable qualify. 



By the violence of the tempest, trees and plants 

 (which commonly resist the ordinary winds) were 

 torn out by the roots. The canes were universally 

 twisted about as if by a whirlwind, or torn out of 

 the ground altogether. In the latter case, both the 

 breeding ants and their progeny must have been 

 exposed to inevitable 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 dimi- 

 nution of the sugar-ants j but it is easy to conceive 

 that the roots of canes which remained on the 

 ground, and the earth about them, were so agitated 

 and shaken, and at the same time the nests were so 

 broken open, or injured by the violence of the wind, 

 as to admit the torrents of rain accompanying it. 

 The principal destruction of the ants is supposed 

 therefore to have been thus effected *. 



Phil. Tran. vol. xxx. p. 346. 



