ORDER HYMENOPTERA: ANTS, BEES, WASPS, ETC. 231 



of a particular kind of fungus. Many of the militant ways of 

 procuring slaves known to the historian are also practised by 

 ants, and some of the enervating and demoralising results of 

 "the peculiar institution" are illustrated by these insects. 

 The dependent alien ant is also known to some of the ant 

 communities, and ants also harbour numerous commensals 

 and parasites of other Orders of Insects. The medical 

 officer in the tropics observes the ant chiefly as an 

 industrious and useful scavenger, but sometimes as a very 

 troublesome pest in houses and laboratories. It is well to 

 bear in mind that some of the small scavenging ants that 

 come about houses have most catholic tastes and might 

 possibly infect food, while on the other hand they may make 

 havoc of termites, bugs, flea-larvae, etc. 



Having briefly reviewed those Orders of Insects — namely, 

 the Diptera, Siphonaptera, Rhynchota, Anoplura, and Hymen- 

 optera — which, whatever else may be said for and against 

 them, include a considerable number of species that do 

 commonly inflict, or can inflict, direct physical suffering 

 upon man, by sucking his life-blood, or by inoculating him 

 with pathogenic haematozoa, or by infecting his food, or by 

 burrowing into his body, or by grievously stinging him, or 

 by treating him in some other way that drives him incon- 

 tinent into the arms of the medical officer, we must next 

 turn our attention to the insects of those Orders that affect the 

 individual human machine in a less direct and tragic fashion. 



Among the insects of what from our point of view may 

 be termed of secondary importance come, outside the foregoing 

 Orders, {a) those that may endanger man's health and bodily 

 comfort by corroding and corrupting his stored provisions 

 and by damaging his habitations ; and {b) those that eat 

 his insect foes, and may therefore be looked upon as respect- 

 able allies of the sanitary department. 



In the first of these conventional assemblages come a 

 good many species belonging the Orders Coleoptera (Beetles), 

 Lepidoptera (Moths), Orthoptera (Cockroaches), Isoptera 

 (Termites), Corrodentia (Book-lice), and Thysanura (Fish- 

 insects) ; these Orders, therefore, will now be reviewed 

 very shortly. 



