SMALL ANTS NO CREATURE CAN WITHSTAND.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 5

SMALL ANTS NO CREATURE CAN WITHSTAND.

Some of the most terrible insects are the "driver" ants of West Africa. They are so called because they drive before them while on the march all other living creatures. No animal is able to withstand them. No beast, however formidable, dares to cross their track, and they will destroy in a single night all the pigs and fowl on a farm. The huge iguana lizards fall victims to them, as do snakes and all other reptiles. It is said that they begin their attack on a snake by biting its eyes and so blinding the prey, which, in--48 tead of runnind away, writhes helpin one spot. Natives of Africa assert that when the great python has crushed its captive in its folds, it does not devour it at once but makes a circuit of at least a mile in diameter in order to see whether an army of driver ants is on the march in the neighbourhood If so, it glides off and abandons its prey, which will soon be eaten by th® ants.

If an army of these ants approaches a village the entire population is compelled to fly. Sometimes the people may 'be obliged to take to the water in order to save themselves. The insects travel in the night, and on cloudy days, because they are quickly killed by the direct rays of the sun. Should the sun come out while they are making a journey, they construct a continuous arch over their path out of earth agglutinated by a fluid excreted from their mouths. In cloudy weather an arch for the protection of the marching workers is constructed of the bodies of the larger soldier ants, whose widely extended jaws, long legs, and protecting antennae, intertwining, form a sort of network.

In case of an alarm the arch is instantly broken and the insects which composed it join other soldiers on the flanks of the line, who seem 1 to be acting as scouts, running about furiously in pursuit of the enemy. The alarm over, the arch is renewed and the army march on as before.