594: 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ANTS— TERMITES— ANT-EATERS— SPIDERS— SCORPIONS. 



Anfs : Vast Numbers of Ants in the Tropical World — Pain caused by their Bites — The Ponera 

 Clavata— The Black Eire-Ant— The Dimiya of Ceylon— The Red Ant of Angola— The 

 Vivagua of the West Indies — The Umbrella Ant — Household Plagues — Troubles of Natu- 

 ralists — The Ranger Ants — The Bashikouay of Western Africa — House-Building Ants 

 — Slaveholding Ants — Aphides, or Plant-Lice — Insect Cow-Keepers. — Termites: Their 

 Ravages among Books and Furniture — Their Citadels — Domestic Economy — Defensive 

 Warfare — American Termites — The Enemies of the Termites — How to Catch, Cook, and 

 Eat them — The Marching Termite. — Ant-Eaters ; The Great Ant-Bear — His Mode of 

 Hunting — Mode of Defense — Anatomical Structure — Lesser Ant-Bears — Manides and Pan- 

 golins — The Aard-Vark — Armadillos — The Porcupine Ant-Eater. — Spiders : Their Physical 

 Structure — Their Webs — Means of Protection — Mode of Catching their Prey — Maternal 

 Instinct — Their Enemies — Uses of Spiders. — Scorpions ; Their Aspects and Habits — Their 

 Venom. 



THE family of Ants is undoubtedly the most numerous of any in the whole circle 

 of winged insects, as its colonies are not confined to one particular region, but 

 are thickly planted over the greatest part of the habitable world. There is with us 

 scarcely a field that does not contain millions ; we cannot rest upon a bank without 

 reclining upon the walls of their cities ; their chief quarters, however, are established 

 in the torrid zone, where they may truly be said to hold a despotic sway over the 

 forest and the savanna, over the thicket and the field. It is hardly possible to pene- 

 trate into a tropical wood without being reminded, by their stings and bites, that they 

 consider the visit as an intrusion, while they themselves unceremoniously invade the" 

 dwellings of man, and lay ruinous contributions on his stores. The inconceivable 

 number of their species defies the memory of the naturalist, to whom many are even 

 still entirely unknown. From almost microscopical size to an inch in length, of all 

 colors and shades between yellow, red, brown, and black, of the most various habits 

 and stations, the ants of a single tropical land would furnish study for years to a 

 zealous entomologist. Every family of plants has its peculiar species, and many trees 

 are even the exclusive dwelling-place of some ant nowhere else to be found. In the 

 scathes of leaves, in the corollas of flowers, in buds and blossoms, over and under the 

 earth, in and out of doors, one meets these ubiquitous little creatures, which are un- 

 doubtedly one of the great plagues of the torrid zone. 



While the ants of the temperate zones cause a disagreeable burning on the skin, by 

 the secretion of a corrosive acid peculiar to the race, the sting or bite of many tropical 

 species causes the most excruciating tortures. "I have no words," says Schomburgk, 

 "to describe the pain inflicted upon me by the mandibles of the Ponera clavata, a 



