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little or no injury to themselves. Some dropped directly from the 
table top to the floor. 
One large colony of ants, on the outsiirts of a portion of the in- 
fested area on Carrollton avenue, had paths running in several direc- 
tions; over these paths thousands of ants were hurryimg all day long. 
A willow tree standing alone in a very bare piece of hard ground 
over 200 feet from the colony was thoroughly infested. The path- 
way from the colony was about 2 inches wide, going fairly straight 
through a weed patch, then directly across the barren ground to the 
tree. The outgoing ants from the colony were usually not laden; a 
few were noticed carrying ant pupe, and these were followed to the 
tree, where they entered a hollow in the trunk. Almost all the re- 
turning ants had distended abdomens, evidently being filled with the 
excretions from the plant lice. A few were seen carrying young 
lepidopterous larvee that were dead at the time I found them. To 
this same nest was traced one large foraging party that was destroy- 
ing a nest of other ants. 
Not only at New Orleans, but at several other towns in the State, I 
heard complaints of the destruction of flowers by the ants. The caly- 
ces and bases of the petals of several kinds of composite ornamental 
flowers were found to have been so thoroughly destroyed that a 
sheht jar would cause the petals to fall. Lemon blossoms on trees 
of B. M. Young, at Morgan City, La., were eaten so badly that the 
trees failed to set fruit. I heard accounts, also, of their establishing 
colonies of plant lice on the flower buds of shrubs in yards to such 
an extent that no flowers opened. I found them attending colonies 
of the “black aphis of chrysanthemum ” at Doctor Stubbs’s resi- 
dence, in Audubon Park, and in other yards to such an extent as to 
dwarf or deform almost half the flowers. 
Hard unripened pears left in barrels on a house porch were found 
several days later to be honeycombed by these ants, almost all the 
interior being eaten. 
Lunch-counter, soda-fountain, candy-store, and fruit-stand pro- 
prietors are kept continually on the watch to prevent their stock in 
trade from being ruined. A grocer in the lower part of the city told 
me that when the ants first appeared they seemed to come in by thou- 
sands in a single day. He stated that he threw away over half a 
barrel of sugar and several boxes of evaporated fruits. 
These ants have driven or killed out all other ants in the regions 
infested by them. I witnessed two battles between them and other 
ants on the outskirts of the infested area. The new ant, although 
much smaller, overcame the other by sheer force of numbers, column 
after column of them arriving on the scene of battle, while long files 
were carrving away dead ants, pupe, and larve. 
