1 877.] 
Our Six-footed Rivals . 
455 
of houses and weedy villages, such as Aveyros : it does not 
occur at all in the shades of the forest. Aveyros was de- 
serted a few years before my visit on account of this little 
tormentor, and the inhabitants had only recently returned 
to their houses, thinking its numbers had decreased. It is 
a small species, of a shining reddish colour, not greatly 
differing from the common stinging ant of our own country 
(Myrmica rubra), except that the pain and irritation caused 
by its sting are much greater. The soil of the whole village 
is undermined by it ; the ground is perforated with the 
entrances to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy 
dome occurs here and there where the inserts bring their 
young to receive warmth near the surface. The houses are 
overrun with them ; they dispute every fragment of food 
with the inhabitants, and destroy clothing for the sake of 
the starch. All eatables are obliged to be suspended in 
baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with 
copaiba balsam, which is the onfy means known of pre- 
venting them from climbing. They seem to attack persons 
out of sheer malice ; if we stood for a few moments in the 
street, even at a distance from their nests, we were sure to 
be overrun with them and severely punished, for the moment 
an ant touched the flesh he secured himself with his jaws, 
doubled in his tail, and stung with all his might. When we 
were seated on chairs in the evenings, in front of the house, 
to enjoy a chat with our neighbours, we had stools to sup- 
port our feet, the legs of which, as well as those of the 
chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The cords of 
hammocks were obliged to be smeared in the same way to 
prevent the ants from paying sleepers a visit.” The ravages 
of the leaf-cutting ant ( Oicodona ), or Saubas of the Brazilians, 
have been already mentioned. But it also invades houses 
and carries off articles of food on a far wider scale than is 
ever done by rats or mice. It is capable of carrying off 
such a quantity as two bushels of mandioca meal in the 
course of a single night. Unfortunately the Sauba has few 
enemies. The number of these depredators who fall a prey 
to birds, spiders, wasps, tiger-beetles, &c., is too small to be 
of any importance. The Pseudomyrma bicolor easily repels 
them if they come to clip the leaves of the bull’s-horn acacia 
on which it resides, but it is not sufficiently numerous to 
pursue and destroy them. The Ecitons have never been 
known to storm the nests of the Sauba. Thus, as we often 
find, for the greatest mischiefs Nature provides no remedy, 
and man must step into the breach armed with carbolic acid 
and corrosive sublimate. 
