THE DRIVER ANT. 67 
continued to give signs of life for more than thirty-six 
hours after decapitation. The body to which it belonged 
lived still longer, or more than forty-eight hours.” 
It is a very remarkable fact that the insect should be so 
tenacious of life under circumstances that would be instantly 
fatal to most creatures, and yet should die suddenly under 
conditions in which many insects live and thrive. The 
reader will remember that the direct action of the sun’s 
rays will kill the Driver Ant in less than two minutes, and 
yet there are Ants of the same country which run about 
freely in the blazing sunshine, traversing with impunity 
the heated ground, which blisters the bare hand, and being 
able to secrete abundant stores of the liquid which they 
use in making their habitation. 
In Dr. Livingstone’s well-known work, there are several 
interesting accounts of Ants and their habits, and one 
anecdote bears so aptly on the subject, that I give it in 
the writer's own words. 
After describing the terrible drought at Chonuane, when 
the river Kolobay ran dry and the fish perished, when the 
crocodile himself was stranded and died, and the native 
trees could not hold up their leaves, he proceeds as follows : 
—“ In the midst of this dreary drought, it was wonderful 
to see those tiny creatures, the Ants, running abont with 
their accustomed vivacity. J put the bulb of a ther- 
mometer three inches under the soil in the sun at mid- 
day, and found the mercury to stand at 132° to 134°; 
and if certain beetles were placed on the surface, they 
only ran about a few seconds and expired. 
“But this boiling heat only augmented the activity of 
the long-legged Black Ants; they never tire ; their organs 
of motion seem endowed with the same power as is ascribed 
by physiologists to the muscles of the human heart, by 
which that part of the frame never becomes fatigued, and 
