86 
HISTORY OF THE [book. iii. 
Their numbers were incredible. I have seen the roads 
coloured by them for miles together; and so crowd¬ 
ed were they in many places, that the print of the horses 
feet would appear for a moment or two, until filled up by 
the surrounding multitude. This is no exaggeration. All 
the other species of ants, although numerous; were circum¬ 
scribed and confined to a small spot, in proportion to the 
space occupied by the cane ants, as a mole hill to a moun¬ 
tain. 
The common black ants of that country had their nests 
about the foundation of houses or old walls; others in hol¬ 
low trees; and a large species in the pastures, descending 
by a small aperture under ground. The sugar ants, I be¬ 
lieve, universally constructed their nests among the roots of 
particular plants and trees, such as the sugar-cane, lime, le¬ 
mon, and orange trees, &c. 
The destruction of these ants was attempted chiefly two 
ways; by poison and the application of fire. 
For the first purpose, arsenic and corrosive sublimate 
mixed with animal substances, such as salt fish, herrings, 
crabs, and other shell fish, &c. were used, which was 
greedily devoured by them. Myriads of them were thus 
destroyed; and the more so, as it was observed by a magni¬ 
fying glass, and indeed (though not so distinctly) by the 
naked eye, that corrosive sublimate had the effect of render¬ 
ing them so outrageous that they destroyed each other; and 
that effect was produced even by coming into contact with 
it. But it is clear, and it was found, that these poisons 
could not be laid in sufficient quantities over so large a tract 
of land as to give the hundred thousandth part of them a 
taste. 
