376 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



cockroaches to their comrades on the floor, who as regularly marched off 

 with the dead bodies of cockroaches, dragging therfl away by their united 

 efforts with amazing rapidity. Either the cockroaches were stung to 

 death on the rafters, or else the fall killed them. The ants never stopped 

 to devour tlieir prey, but conveyed it all to their storehouses. 



" The windward windows of this room were of glass, and a battle now 

 ensued between the ants and the jack-spaniards on the panes of glass. 

 The jack-spaniard may be called the wasp of the West Indies ; it is twice 

 as large as a British wasp, and its sting is in proportion more painful : it 

 builds its nests in trees and old houses, and sometimes in the rafters of a 

 room. These jack-spaniards were not quite such easy prey as the cock- 

 roaches had been, for they used their wings, which not one cockroach had 

 attempted to do. Two jack-spaniards, hotly pursued on the window, 

 alighted on the dress of one of niy children. I entreated her to sit still, 

 and remain quiet. In an inconceivably short space of time, a party of 

 ants crawled upon her frock, surrounded, covered the two jack-spaniards, 

 and crawled down again to the floor, dragging off their prey, and doing 

 the child no harm. 



" From this room I went to the adjoining bed-chamber and dressing- 

 room, and found fliem equally in possession of the chasseurs. I opened 

 a large military chest full of linen, which had been much infested ; for I 

 was determined to take every advantage of such able hunters. I found 

 the ants already inside; I suppose they must have got in at some opening 

 at the hinges. I pulled out the linens on the floor, and with them hun- 

 dreds of cockroaches, not one of which escaped. 



" We now left the house, and went to the chambers built at a little 

 distance ; but these also were in the same state. I next proceeded to 

 open a store-room at the end of the other house for a place of retreat ; 

 but, to get the key, I had to return to the under room, where the battle 

 was now more hot than ever. The ants had commenced an attack upon 

 the rats and mice, which, strange as it may appear, were no match for 

 their apparently insignificant foes. They surrounded them as they had 

 the insect tribe, covered them over, and dragged them off with a celerity 

 and union of strength, that no one who has not watched such a scene can 

 comprehend. I did not see one rat or mouse escape, and I am sure I 

 saw a score carried off during a very short period. We next tried the 

 kitchen, for the store-room and boy's pantry were already occupied ; but 

 the kitchen was equally the field of battle, between rats, mice, cock- 

 roaches, and ants killing them. A huckster negro came up selling cakes ; 

 and seeing the uproar, and the family and servants standing out in the 

 sun, he said, ' Ah, misses, you've got the blessing of God to-day, and a 

 great blessing it is to get such a cleaning.' 



" I think it was about ten when I first observed the ants ; about twelve 

 the battle was formidable ; soon after one o'clock the great strife began 

 with the rats and mice ; and about three the houses were cleared. In a 

 quarter of an hour more the ants began to decamp, and soon not one was 

 to be seen within doors. But the grass round the house was full of them ; 

 and they seemed now feasting on the remnants of their prey, which had 

 been left on the road to their nests; and so the feasting continued till 

 about four o'clock, when the black birds, who had never been long absent 



