456 J. C. BRANNER — GEOLOGIC WORK OF ANTS 



What is said of that period is equally true today: 



" . . . Wherever they go they destroy the fields of mandioea, the orchards, 

 orange trees, pomegranates, and vines. If it were not for these ants there 

 would be many Portuguese vines and grapes in Bahia. These ants come a long 

 way at night to find a mandioea field, and where they march they wear a path 

 as if people had walked along it for many days, and they never go out except 

 by night. And in order to prevent their eating the trees which they injure, a 

 ring of mud is put around their bases and filled with water, and if the water 

 dries up during the day, or if a straw falls across it in the night they have 

 spies who notify them at once, and immediately such a multitude of them 

 crosses over on the straw that before morning they have all the leaves on the 

 ground; . . . and while everything grows here that can be desired, this 

 curse interferes to such an extent that it takes away men's desire to plant any 

 more than that without which they can not live." 



A late and thoroughly trustworthy writer says of the ants in the coffee 

 regions : 



"The enemy most dreaded in the fazendas is indubitably the sauva, or tana- 

 jura, a dark-brown ant, two centimeters long, which undermines the ground by 

 digging extensive passages and dens in all directions. It attacks all sorts of 

 trees, the coffee-shrub among others, but has a decided preference for the 

 orange and citron trees in the coffee gardens. 



"In former times these ants seem to have worli^d frightful havoc iu the 

 cafesaes (coffee plantations) by causing landslips, because the means of de- 

 stroying whole nests at once was not then discovered. Now they are less 

 feared, although it still costs from 8 to 12 guineas a month per plantation to 

 keep them down. 



"On every fazenda two or three slaves are kept, whose exclusive business it 

 is to find out the nests of the sauvas. Frequently they are even paid a certain 

 sum to encourage and quicken their zeal. . . . 



"The subterranean ant-labyrinth destroyed in my presence near the fazenda 

 areas in Cantagallo seemed to be very extensive."" 



The expense of fighting these ants is a really serious item in the cost 

 of the production of Brazilian coffee. A distinguished Brazilian planter 

 saySj with perfect justice, that ^%niong the obstacles with which the 

 planters have to contend . . . there stands perhaps in the front 

 rank the destructive force represented by the sauba."^'' 



One can get some idea of the economic importance of ants in Brazil 

 from the fact that in the 70's and early 80's an enormous number of 

 privileges or patents were asked of the Brazilian government for ma- 

 chines and devices of various kinds for killing ants, and especially the 

 scmhas. 



i" C. F. Van Del den Laerne : Brazil and Java. Report on coffee culture in America, 

 Asia, and Africa, pp. 297-298. London, 1885. 



1'^ Henrique de Paula Mascarenhas : Revista Agricola do Imperial Institute, vol. xiv, p. 

 215. Rio de Janeiro, December, 1883. 



