in size among themselves, but never
hydrocephalic like the two before spoken of. Very
extensive are the underground ramifications of
this Saüba ant. An enterprising French
gardener tried to clear them out of the Botanic
Gardens at Pariá by blowing sulphur into their
galleries; and Mr. Bates says he saw the smoke
issue at an outlet seventy yards distant from the
place where the bellows were used. The Saüba
ant not only clips the leaves off the trees in the
free forest, but also acts burglar on its own
account, and comes into the house, where it will
carry off, grain by grain, any amount of the
farinha, or mandioca meal, which makes the
bread of the locality. One night, Mr. Bates was
awakened by his servant calling out to him that
the rats were at his farinha baskets. He got
up and listened; but the noise was not that of
rats; and when he went into the store-room, he
found truly almost a more formidable enemy;
for there he confronted a broad column of Saüba
ants, each laden with a grain, passing between
the door and his precious farinha baskets, the
whole contents of which (about two bushels)
they would have carried off in that one night
had they not been disturbed. Conquered they
were not, though killed by thousands; for ever
a fresh phalanx walked in to supply their dead
comrades' places, and it was only after repeated
blowings up by gunpowder—repeated so often
that at last the hard heads learnt the lesson and
got afraid—that Mr. Bates and his farinha
baskets were left in peace. We do not hear how
the natives protect themselves against the Saüba
ant, but to smear with copaüba balsam
everything which they would have to traverse—as
cords by which food-baskets are suspended, the
legs of chairs and footstools, hammock-ropes,
&c.—is the only means of warding off the
attacks of another ant pest, the fire-ant, or
formiga de fogo, which is the scourge of the
Tapajos river—one of the branch rivers of the
Amazons.

Another kind is the Eciton, of which let the
pedestrian beware; for, should he disregard the
twittering and restless flitting hither and thither
of small flocks of certain plain-coloured birds
(ant-thrushes), in a very few steps he will come
to grief, and fall into the midst of the ant-
army. They will "swarm up his legs with
inconceivable rapidity, each one driving its pincers-
like jaws into his skin, and, with the purchase
thus obtained, doubling in its tail and stinging
with all its might." His only chance then is to
run for it—as the natives have done, shouting
"Tauóca!" and scampering to the other end of
the column—and when safe there he must pick
off his ants one by one, more often than not
leaving their heads and jaws sticking in his flesh.
When the Ecitons are out, the animal and insect
worlds are in commotion and dismay. Spiders,
caterpillars, maggots, larvæ of all kinds, fall an
easy prey to the devouring multitudes: a wasps'
nest is rifled with supreme indifference to the
stings of the owners, and the larvæ and pupæ
apportioned fairly, according to the relative size
of the spoil and the spoiler—the large bits to the
large Ecitons, and the small bits to the small;
and then away they march back to their own
home through the entangled thickets, where no
one can follow them.

Once, at Villa Nova, Mr. Bates thought he
had come upon a migratory horde of this ant;
but it was only a foraging party after all,
returning home with their spoil—the grubs of
another species. It was a dense column of from
sixty to seventy yards long, and yet neither van
nor rear was visible; all were moving in the
same direction save a few isolated individuals on
the outside of the column running rearward for
a short distance, then wheeling about and
trotting on with the main body. These rearward
movements were going on everywhere, and
seemed to be a way of communicating a common
understanding to the army; for the retrograding
ants stopped often, to touch some onward-moving
comrade with their antennæ, by which they
doubtless gave him the password or the signal,
or told him the way he was to go. The large-
headed fellows of the tribe are singularly
conspicuous in these columns. They are as one to
about a score of the smaller class; "none of
them carried anything in their mouths, but all
trotted along empty-handed and outside the
column, at pretty regular intervals from each
other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment
of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably
exact in this observation, for their shining white
heads made them very conspicuous amongst the
rest, bobbing up and down as the column passed
over the inequalities of the road." They went
along quite quietly, not noticing their
companions; and when the column was wantonly
disturbed they did not show fight or prance
forth as eagerly as the others did. What is
their specific use to their community, Mr. Bates
cannot quite determine. He throws out a
suggestion that it may be that of causing indigestion
to the ant-thrushes which follow the marching
columns and are the most deadly enemies the
Ecitons have.

There are many other kinds of these ants;
there is the small red Eciton which looks like
a deep red liquid flowing over the surface of
all it attacks; and there is the blind Eciton,
with the link connecting—the Eciton
crassicornis which is only half blind, with small
eyes sunk in deep sockets—a stout-limbed kind,
and not in the smallest degree tamed or mollified
by its misfortune. But they are all full of
interest in their ways and works; and not the least
so when they have laid aside their evil natures
and frolic on the sunny ground like so many
lambs, or kittens, or pretty little bull-headed
puppies; leaping and dancing, and actually
washing each other, with lessons in shampooing
superadded, wonderful to behold. Even the
ant then understands the old adage of all work
and no play, and is resolved that the Eciton
Jack shall not be a dull boy for want of an
occasional holiday.

Full of interest, too, are the monkeys,
those poor relations of ours sitting below the
salt, as other ragamuffins have done before