1848.] 



ANTS. 



9 



sunning themselves on logs of wood, or creeping up to the 

 eaves of the lower houses. In every garden, road, and dry 

 sandy situation they are scampering out of the way as we walk 

 along. Now they crawl round the trunk of a tree, watching 

 us as we pass, and keeping carefully out of sight, just as a 

 squirrel will do under similar circumstances; now they walk 

 up a smooth wall or paling as composedly and securely as if 

 they had the plain earth beneath them. Some are of a dark 

 coppery colour, some with backs of the most brilliant silky 

 green and blue, and others marked with delicate shades and 

 Hnes of yellow and brown. On this sandy soil, and beneath 

 this bright sunshine, they seem to enjoy every moment of their 

 existence, basking in the hot sun with the most indolent 

 satisfaction, then scampering off as if every ray had lent 

 vivacity and vigour to their chilly constitutions. Far different 

 from the little lizards with us, which cannot raise their body 

 from the ground, and drag their long tails like an encumbrance 

 after them, these denizens of a happier clime carry their tails 

 stuck out in the air, and gallop away on their four legs with as 

 much freedom and muscular power as a warm-blooded quad- 

 ruped. To catch such lively creatures was of course no easy 

 matter, and all our attempts utterly failed ; but we soon got 

 the little Negro and Indian boys to shoot them for us with 

 their bows and arrows, and thus obtained many specimens. 



Next to the lizards, the ants cannot fail to be noticed. They 

 startle you with the apparition of scraps of paper, dead leaves, 

 and feathers, endued with locomotive powers; processions 

 engaged in some abstruse engineering operations stretch across 

 the public paths ; the flowers you gather or the fruit you pluck 

 is covered with them, and they spread over your hand in such 

 swarms as to make you hastily drop your prize. At meals 

 they make themselves quite at home upon the tablecloth, in 

 your plate, and in the sugar-basin, though not in such numbers 

 as to offer any serious obstruction to your meal. In these 

 situations, and in many others, you will find them, and in each 

 situation it will be a distinct kind. Many plants have ants 

 peculiar to them. Their nests are seen forming huge black 

 masses, several feet in diameter, on the branches of trees. In 

 paths in woods and gardens we often see a gigantic black 

 species wandering about singly or in pairs, measuring near an 

 inch and a half long ; while some of the species that frequent 



