PDF - Wallace Online

in ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 281my table, in my bed, and all over my body. Luckily, theywere diurnal, so that on sweeping out my bed at night Icould get on pretty well ;but during the day I could alwaysfeel some of them running over my body, and every now andthen one would give me a sting so sharp as to make me jumpand search instantly for the offender, who was usually foundholding on tight with his jaws and thrusting in his sting withall his might. Another genus, Pheidole, consists of forestants, living under rotten bark or in the ground, and veryvoracious. They are brown or blackish, and are remarkablefor their great variety of size and form in the same species,the largest having enormous heads many times larger thantheir bodies, and being at least a hundred times as bulky asthe smallest individuals. These great-headed ants are verysluggish and incapable of keeping up with the more activesmall workers, which often surround and drag them along asifthey were wounded soldiers. It is difficult to see what usethey can be in the colony, unless, as Mr. Bates suggests, theyare mere baits to be attacked by insect-eating birds, and thussave their more useful companions. These ants devour grubs,white ants, and other soft and helpless insects, and seem totake the place of the foraging ants of America and driverants of Africa, though they are far less numerous and lessdestructive. An allied genus, Solenopsis, consists of red ants,which, in the Moluccas, frequent houses, and are a mostterrible pest. They form colonies underground, and worktheir way up through the floors, devouring everything eatable.Their stingis excessively painful, and some of thespecies are hence called fire-ants. When a house is infestedby them, all the tables and boxes must be supported onblocks of wood or stone placed in dishes of water, as evenclothes njot newly washed are attractive to them and;woe tothe poor fellow who puts on garments in the folds of whicha dozen of these ants are lodged.It is very difficult topreserve bird skins or other specimens of natural historywhere these ants abound, as they gnaw away the skin roundthe eyes and the base of the bill, and if a specimen is laiddown for even half an hour in an unprotected place it willbe ruined. I remember once entering a native house to restand eat my lunch and; having a large tin collecting-box full