ANTS AND THEIR BITES. 



595 



large, and, fortunately, not very common ant, whose long black body is beset with 

 single hairs. Like an electric shock the pain instantly shot through my whole body, 

 and soon after acquired the greatest intensity in the breast, aad over and under the 

 arm-pits. After a few minutes I felt almost completely paralyzed, so that I could only 

 with the greatest difficulty, and under the most excruciating tortures, totter towards 

 the plantation, which, however, it was impossible for me to reach. I was found sense- 

 less on the ground, and the following day a violent wound fever ensued." The Tri^- 

 laris Americana, a South American tree, about sixty or eighty feet high, the branches 

 of which are completely hollow and transversely partitioned at regular intervals, like 

 the stems of the bamboo, is the retreat of one of the most terocious ants. Woe to the 

 naturalist who, ignorant of the fact, endeavors to break off a shoot of the Triplaris, or 

 only knocks against the tree, for thousands will instantly issue from small round 

 lateral openings in the plant, and fall upon him with inconceivable fury. The touch 

 of a hot iron is not more painful than their bite, and the inflammation and pain last 

 for several days after. 



The black fire-ant of Guiana, though very small, is capable of inflicting excessive 

 pain. " These insects," says Stedman, *' live in such amazing multitudes together, 

 that their hillocks have sometimes obstructed our passage by their size, over which, 

 if one chances to pass, the feet and legs are instantly covered with innumerable hosts 

 of these creatures, which seize the skin with such violence in their pincers, that they 

 will sooner suffer the head to be parted from the body than let go their hold. The 

 burning pain which they occasion cannot, in my opinion, proceed from the sharpness 

 of the pincers only, but must be owing to some venomous fluid, which they infuse, or 

 which the wound imbibes from them. I can aver that I have seen them make a whole 

 company hop about as if they had been scalded with boiling water." 



Of the more than seventy species of ants which occur in Ceylon alone. Sir E. Ten- 

 nent describes the Dimiya, or great red ant, as the most formidable. " Like all their 

 race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground, along which 

 they pass in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside. They 

 are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity 

 as to render it difficult for the unclad native to collect the fruit from the mango-trees, 

 which the red ants especially frequent. They drop from the branches upon travelers 

 in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain 

 both upon animals and man. On examining the structure of the head through a micro- 

 scope, I found that the mandibles, instead of meeting in contact, are so hooked as to 

 cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its 

 entire length, thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of 

 the ordinary ant." 



" Having, while in Angola, accidentally stepped upon a nest of red ants," says 

 Livingstone, " not an instant seemed to elapse before a simultaneous attack was made 

 on various unprotected parts, up the trousers from below, and on my neck and breast 

 above. The bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat. 

 It is really astonishing how such small bodies can contain so large an amount of ill- 

 nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves round after the mandibles are in- 

 serted, to produce laceration and pain more than would be effected by the single wound." 



But however formidable the weapons of the ants may be, yet the injuries they in- 



