ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



INSF.CT TYRANTS 



By William Beebe 



Illustrations l>i/ John Tee Van 



I STOOD on the brim of a pit dug in an an- 

 cient sand dune in the heart of the Guiana 

 wilderness. A horde of those Huns of the 

 jungle, army ants, had made their drive direct- 

 ly across the glade, and scores of fleeing insects 

 and other creatures had fallen headlong into 

 this dee]) pit. From my man's height it was 

 a dreadful encounter, but crowding near the 

 edge it became even more terrible: and when I 

 flattened myself on the sand and began to dis- 

 tinguish individuals, and perceive details from 

 an ant's point of view. I realized the full hor- 

 ror and irresistibility of an assault by these 

 ants. 



I perceived a large toad squatted on a small 

 shelf of sand in the pit. close to the edge of a 

 crowded column of ants. He was a rough old 

 chap, covered with warts and corrugations, and 

 pigmented in dark grey, with mottlings of choc- 

 olate and dull red and occasional glints of gold. 

 He was crouched flat, with all his fingers and 

 toes tucked in beneath him. His head was drawn 

 in, his eyes closed, and all his exposed surface 

 was sticky with his acid perspiration — the sweat 

 of fear. He knew his danger — of that there 

 was no doubt — and he was apparently aware 



of the fact that he could not escape. Resignedly 

 he had settled on the very line of traffic of the 

 deadly foe. after intrenching himself and sum- 

 moning to his aid all the defenses with which 

 nature had endowed him. 



And he was winning out ! He was the first 

 vertebrate I have ever known to withstand the 

 army ants. For a few minutes he would be 

 ignored and his sides would vibrate as he 

 breathed with feverish rapidity. Then two or 

 three ants would run toward him, play upon 

 him with their antennae, and examine him sus- 

 piciously. During this time he was immovable. 

 Even when a soldier sank his mandibles deep 

 into the roughened skin and wrenched viciously, 

 the toad never moved. He might have been a 

 parti-colored pebble embedded in its matrix of 

 sand. Once when three bit him simultaneously, 

 he winced, and the whitish, acrid juice oozed 

 from his pores. Usually the ants were content 

 with merely examining him. I left him when I 

 saw that he was in no immediate danger. 



For the dozens of grasshoppers, crickets, 

 roaches, beetles, spiders, ants, and harvest men. 

 there was no escape. One daddy-long-legs did 

 a pitiful dance of death. Supported on his eight 



