9 D HISTORY OF THE [book iii. 
come putrid, so as that they could separate the parts, soon 
disappeared. Negroes with sores had difficulty to keep the 
ants from the edges of them. They destroyed all other 
vermin, rats in particular, of Which they cleared every 
plantation they came upon, which they probably effected by 
attacking their young. It was found that poultry or other 
small stock, could be raised only with the greatest difficul¬ 
ty, and the eyes, nose, and other emunctoriesof the bodies 
of dying or dead animals were instantly covered with these 
ants. 
From what has been said it appears, that a dry situation, 
so as to exclude the ordinary rains from their nests or cells, 
appropriated for the reception of their eggs or young biood* 
is absolutely necessary; but that these situations, however 
well calculated for the usual weather, could not affoid this 
protection from rain during the hurricane, may be easily 
conceived. 
When, by the violence of the tempest heavy pieces of ar¬ 
tillery were removed from their places, and houses and su¬ 
gar works levelled with the ground, there can be no doubt 
that trees, and every thing growing above ground, must 
have greatly suffered. This was the case. Great numbers 
of trees and plants (which commonly resist the ordinary 
winds) were torn out by the roots. The canes were univer¬ 
sally either lodged, or twisted about as if by a whirlwind, or 
torn out of the ground altogether. In the latter case, the 
breeding ants, with their progeny, must have been exposed 
to inevitable destruction from the deluge of rain which 
fell at the same time. The number of canes, however, 
thus torn out of the ground, could not have been adequate 
to the sudden diminution of the sugar ants; but it is easy 
to conceive, that the roots of canes, which remained on the 
ground, and the earth about them, were so agitated and 
shaken, and at the same time the ants’ nests were so hro- 
