340 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
they visit, as he himself once witnessed at Cayenne.'_ But whatever ma 
be the fact as to the migrating ants of Cayenne, the Chasseur-Ants of Tri. 
nidad would seem to migrate for the express purpose of scouring human 
habitations for food, according to the account given by Mrs. Carmichael, 
which presents so graphic a picture of their proceedings, that I shall give it 
to you entire, especially as its minute and circumstantial details seem to 
vouch for its accuracy :— 
“ One morning my attention was arrested at Laurel Hill by an unusual 
number of black birds, whose appearance was foreign to me: they were 
smaller, but not unlike an English crow ; and were perched on a calibash. 
tree near the kitchen, I asked the house-negress, who at that moment 
came up from the garden, what could be the cause of the appearance of 
those black birds? She said, ‘ Misses, dem be a sign of the blessing of 
God ; dey are not de blessing, but only de sign, as we say, of God's 
blessing. Misses, you'll see afore noontime how the ants will come and 
clear the houses.’ At this moment I was called to breakfast, and thinking 
jt was some superstitious idea of hers, I paid no further attention to it, — 
Tn about two hours after this, I observed an uncommon number of 
chasseur-ants crawling about the floor of the room: my children were 
annoyed by them, and seated themselves on a table, where their legs did 
not communicate with the floor. The ants did not crawl upon my person, 
but I was now surrounded by them. Shortly after this, the walls of the: 
room became covered by them; and next they began to take possession 
of the tables and chairs. I now thought it necessary to take refuge in an 
adjoining room, separated only by a few ascending steps from the one we: 
occupied, and this was not accomplished without great care and generalship, 
for had we trodden upon one we should have been summarily punished. 
There were several ants on the top of the stair, but they were not nearly 
so numerous as in the room we had left; but the upper room presented a 
singular spectacle, for not only were the floor and the walls covered like 
the other room, but the roof was covered also. 
“ The open rafters of a West India house at all times afford shelter to a 
numerous tribe of insects, more particularly the cockroach ; but now their 
destruction was inevitable. The chasseur-ants, as if trained for battle, 
ascended in regular, thick files, to the rafters, and threw down the cock- 
roaches to their comrades on the floor, who as regularly marched off with 
the dead bodies of cockroaches, dragging them 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 
their 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 
toom. 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 my children, I entreated her to sit still, 
1 Lacordaire, Introd. a Entom, ii. 504, 
