Page:Under the Sun.djvu/71

Rh one side of a post and down the other is not the quickest way of getting past the post, and that in throwing up mounds on garden-paths they are giving hostages to a ruthless gardener, they can scarcely be accused of even common sense.

There has lately been discovered a species of ant which deserves to be at once introduced to the attention of all children, servants, and ladies keeping house. No vestry should be ignorant of the habits of so admirable a creature, and sanitary boards of all kinds should without loss of time be put in possession of the leading facts.

This excellent ant, it appears, abominates rubbish. If its house is made in a mess it gets disgusted, goes away, and never comes back. Dirt breaks its heart.

The insect in question is a native of Colombia, and hatches its eggs by artificial heat, procuring for this purpose quantities of foliage, which, in the course of natural fermentation, supply the necessary warmth. When the young brood is hatched the community carefully carry away the decomposed rubbish that has served its purpose as a hotbed, and stack it by itself at a distance from the nest. The damage which they inflict upon gardens and plantations when collecting the leaves required is so enormous that colonists have exhausted their ingenuity in devising means for their expulsion or extermination; but all in vain, for the ant, where-ever it “squats,” strikes very firm roots indeed, and neither plague, pestilence, nor famine, neither fire nor brimstone, nor yet holy water, can compel it to go away. It takes no notice whatever of writs of