Air. Castles’s Observations on 
twilled about as if by a whirlwind, or torn out of the ground 
altogether. In the latter cafe, the breeding ants, with their 
progeny, mult have been expofed to inevitable deftrudtion from 
the deluge of rain which fell at the fame time. The number 
of canes, however, thus torn out of the ground, could not 
have been adequate to the fudden diminution of the fugar 
ants; but it is eafy to conceive, that the roots of canes which 
remained on the ground, and the earth about them, were fo 
agitated and lhaken, and at the fame time the ants nefts were fo 
broken open, or injured, by the violence of the wind, as to 
admit the torrents of rain accompanying it. I apprehend, 
therefore, that the principal deftrudtion of thefe ants muff 
have been thus effedted. 
Two circumftances tended to facilitate this happy effedt. 
Many of the roots of the canes infedted, as above obferved, 
were either dead or rotten, fo as not to be capable of making 
the fame refiftance to the wind as thofe in perfedt health. And 
this hurricane happened fo very late as the month of Odtober, 
when the canes are always fo high above ground as to give the 
wind fufficient hold of them, which at an earlier period would 
not have been the cafe. 
That many of the cane ants were fwept off by the torrents 
of rain into the rivers and ravines, and thus periAed, I have 
no doubt ; but if we confider the obftacles to this being very 
general, it could have had but fmall effedt in conliderably re- 
ducing their numbers ; for on flat land it could not have hap- 
pened. In hanging or hilly land, the cane tralh would afford 
great Ihelter, and the ants would naturally retire to their nefts 
for fecurity, when they found their danger. 
Some have fuppofed, that the fugar ants, after a certain 
time, degenerate, and become inoffenfive ; and in proof of this, 
° • they 
