372 
NOTES OF A 
BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
to stream in, she devoutly crossed herself, muttered 
some invocation or exorcism, and sprinkled the 
water gently over them. Then walking quietly 
round and round the hut, she continued her asper- 
sion on the marauders, and thereby literally so 
damped their ardour that they began to beat a 
retreat, and in ten minutes not an ant was to be 
seen. 
Some years afterwards I was residing in a farm- 
house on the river Daule, near Guayaquil, when I 
witnessed a similar invasion. The house was large, 
of two stories, and built chiefly of bamboo-cane — 
the walls being merely an outer and an inner layer 
of cane, without plaster inside or out, so that they 
harboured vast numbers of cockroaches, scorpions, 
rats, mice, bats, and even snakes, although the 
latter abode chiefly in the roof Notwithstanding 
the size of the house, every room was speedily filled 
with the ants. The good lady hastened to fasten 
up her fresh meat, fish, sugar, etc., in safes in- 
accessible even to the ants ; and I was prompt to 
impart my experience of the efficacy of baptism by 
water in ridding a house of such pests. " Oh," 
said she laughingly, "we know all that; but let 
them first have time to clear the house of vermin ; 
for if even a rat or a snake be caught napping, they 
will soon pick his bones." They had been in the 
house but a very little while when we heard a 
great comm.otion inside the walls, chiefly of mice 
careering madly about and uttering terrified squeals ; 
and the ants were allowed to remain thus, and hunt 
over the house at will, for three days and nights, 
when, having exhausted their legitimate game, they 
beijan to be troublesome in the kitchen and on the 
