ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



print with clearness, or, much better, to type- 

 write a sheet of the required labels, and to re- 

 duce these on a photographic plate to any con- 

 venient size. Then by printing on ordinary un- 

 glazed paper or making common blue-prints, 

 any desired number are available within the hour 

 or two necessary for making the fixed, dried 

 prints. 



It is so simple a matter that I would hesitate 

 to record it, were it not that my memory is still 

 very vivid of the times I wearily wrote labels 

 by the hour on many expeditions, before this 

 solution occurred to me and was put into prac- 

 tice, instantly and successfully. 



ANT PESTS AND ANT-EATING 



ANIMALS 



By S. P. Verner. 



From the Panama Star and Herald 



THE ant-eaters are close kin to the sloths, 

 but they live on the ground also, whereas 

 the sloths live on trees. The ant-eating 

 animals comprise the great or maned ant-eater, 

 (Myrmecophaga jubata) ; the lesser ant-eater, 

 or tamandua (Tamandua tetradactylus) ; the 

 two-toed ant-eater, (Cyclopes didactylus) ; the 

 armadillos; the pangolins; and the aard-varks. 

 These six groups of animals are usually all 

 classed under the order of the edentates, al- 

 though they differ widely from one another in 

 many respects. The ant-eaters and the arma- 

 dillos are Central and South American animals; 

 the pangolins and the aard-varks are Afro- 

 Asiatic. 



The main point of interest common to these 

 animals presented for consideration here is the 

 fact that they devour ants, and that they may 

 possibly be put to a useful economic purpose 

 because of that fact. 



The extent to which farming and gardening 

 in Panama is handicapped by the presence of 

 certain species of ants is a fact well known to 

 everybody who has had the least experience in 

 the matter. The difficulty of getting rid of the 

 insects within the limits of the expense that 

 could be borne is almost unbelieveable unless 

 one has tried it. The main reason for it lies in 

 the marvellously intelligent routine habits of 

 the ants. They have their central fortress, 

 which is their home, food warehouse, nest, 

 queen's palace, all in one; and from this center 

 they have their long marching lines of workers 

 and soldiers moving along in a continuous cir- 

 cuit to the trees or shrubs which they attack. 



and back again to their base ; this being so con- 

 tinuous a movement that if one followed up the 

 line outside of the nest in the ground and mash- 

 ed them all, there would still be immense num- 

 bers of them in the subterranean galleries and 

 chambers ; while if the latter were blown up, 

 and the lines left outside, there would be a suf- 

 ficient number left outside for them to go off 

 and start a new colony. Moreover, the minute 

 a disturbance starts they scatter round so that 

 it is almost impossible to get them all. They 

 are extremely suspicious and wary ; it is almost 

 impossible to poison them, or to get them on 

 sticky substances, or to trap them; while the 

 usually prescribed use of carbon bisulphide has 

 not been either completely efficacious or cheap 

 enough to meet the requirements. 



Of course it is possible for men to beat ants. 

 By using dynamite, or the wholesome applica- 

 tion of poisonous liquids or gas, or even by per- 

 severing digging and killing, they can be elim- 

 inated, but to get rid of a single well-developed 

 colony by any or all of these methods would 

 cost not less than ten or fifteen dollars, some- 

 times much more. Some of these colonies hon- 

 ey-comb the ground over an area of a hundred 

 square yards and to a depth of two yards, thus 

 requiring the excavation of two hundred cubic 

 yards of earth to get rid of the nest. 



The damage they can do is amazing. A col- 

 ony has been known to strip an avocado tree 

 in a day; another to destroy a hundred hills of 

 yam-vines in the same time. Any kind of prod- 

 uce which they like cannot be raised near the 

 nests; and their tastes are unfortunately very 

 much like man's 



The possibility of using the ant-eating ani- 

 mals to combat these pests is therefore inter- 

 esting. I am not aware that it has ever been 

 done, and do not know how such an experiment 

 would work out in practice. But ant-eaters 

 would feed themselves on the work ; they are 

 known to tear the hardest and toughest nests 

 all to pieces to get at the larvae, and in this way 

 they also expose and probably destroy the 

 queens. They could be harnessed so as not to 

 interfere with their working powers, and as they 

 also eat other insects they could be kept at little 

 expense when not eating the ants, though there, 

 are ants enough here to keep a good many busy 

 all the time. 



All this at least would warrant the capture 

 and preservation of any ant-eater found here. 

 Armadillos are fairly common, and all three of 

 the ant-eaters are found in Central America. 



