Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/277

Rh ever seen on the line e, and no yellow one ever approaches the line a, each keeping his own station, and following his given line of duty with a steadfastness which is remarkable.

When the course of the galleries is traced from the entrances, a small excavation is reached, across which is stretched, in the form of a spider's web, a net-work of squares about one-quarter inch across, the ends of the web being fastened firmly to the earth of the sides of the cell. In each one of the squares, supported by the web, sits one of the honey-making workers—prisoners, for locomotion is impossible, the distended abdomen which constitutes the honey-bag being at least twenty times as large as the rest of the body. The workers provide them a constant supply of flowers and pollen, which, by a process analogous to that of the bee, they convert into honey. Whether the honey-makers are themselves used as food, or excrete their saccharine fluid, and then proceed to distill more, is not known. Indeed, that the remainder of the inhabitants feed on the supply thus obtained in any manner, although surmised, has not been established, very little being known of the economy of these creatures.

The honey is much sought after by the Mexicans, who not only use it as a delicate article of food, but ascribe to it great healing properties.

The worst insect pest of tropical America is the terrible fire-ant (Myrmica sævissima), whose sting is likened to the puncture of a red-hot needle. It is found only on sandy soils in open places, and seems to thrive most near houses and in weedy villages. Towns are sometimes deserted on account of this little tormentor. It is a small species, of a shining red color, not greatly differing from the common red stinging-ant of our own country, except that the pain and irritation caused by its sting are much greater. Where it abounds, the whole soil 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 insects bring their young to receive warmth near the surface. Homes are overrun with them; they dispute every fragment of food with the inhabitants, and destroy clothing for the sake of the starch. All eatables have to be suspended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with copaiba-balsam, which is the only means known to prevent them from climbing. They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice. The legs of tables, chairs, and stools, and the cords of hammocks, have to be smeared in the same way.

Belonging to a totally different group are the. Ecitons, or foraging-ants; they are carnivorous, and hunt in vast armies, exciting terror wherever they go, resembling in their habits the. often-described drivers of tropical Africa, though belonging to quite another subgroup of the ant tribe. They are composed, besides males and females, of two classes of workers—a large-headed and a small-headed