Nature's Most Invincible Creatures.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5068, 29 September 1894, Page 6

Nature's Most Invincible Creatures.

(Br Eugene if. Aaron, in the Scientific -tmm'ean.) • We are apt to consider ourselves the moßt powerful and all-conquering members of the animal world, and next to us we ' range suoh creaturea aa the lion, tiger; grizzly bear and elephant, as capable of maintaining their own against all comera in an open hand-to-hand or mouth-to« month fight. Yet in doing so we en greatly, simply because we consider mere bigness or muscular force, forgetting the energy and the intellectual powers that make one of Nature's tiny creatures, when combined in the vast numbers in whichthey are always found, by far ths most formidable animal force known on land. Therefore, when the question is pnt to us, " Which do you consider the most resistless of all animals F" it is always safe to reply that if warlike manifestations are. referred to, the soldier or driver ante are far and away the most terribly invinolble creatures with whioh we oan be brought in - contact. Monsieur Coillard, a Frenon missionary in the Barotse Valley of Soutb - Central Africa, thus writes of these terrori - there:— "One sees them busy; IN INNUMKBABLK BATTALIONS, ranked and disciplined, winding along like a broad black ribbon of watered silk. Whence come theyP Where are they going ? Nothing can stop them, nor oan any object ohange their route. If it iB an inaminate objeot, they turn it aside and paBS on; if it is living they assail it venomously, crowding one on top of the other to the attack, while the main army patses on, business-like and silent. Is the obstacle a trench or a stream of water P Then they form themselves at its edge into a oompaot mass. Is this a deliberating assembly? Probably, for soon the mass stirs aud moves on, Grosses the trench or stream, continues in its incessant and mysterious march. A multitude of these soldiers are sacrificed for the common good, and these legions, whioh know not what it is to be beaten, piss over the corpses of theße victims to their destination." Against these tiny enemies no man, nor band of men, no lion or tiger, nor even a herd of elephants, oan do any* thing but hurriedly get out of the way. Among the Barotse natives A FAVOUEITE POEM OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT is to coat the viotim with grease and throw him before the advancing army ol soldier ants. The quickness with whioh the poor wretch is despatched is marvel" lous when it is considered that eaoh ant can do nothing mora than merely tear out a small particle of flesh and carry it off. Yet in a surprisingly short time the writh- - ing victim will have been changed into a skeleton of clean and polished bones that will make the trained anatomist envious. All are familiar with the taleß of how theße armies of ants enter a tropical vil. . lage and take entire possession of it, driving its inhabitants out in terror, and " atlaßtin a few hours or a .day or tiro abandoning it cleaner than the art's of the moat orderly housekeeper could ever make it. These are not travellers' tales. The most gifted pen must fail to give an adequ.Ee idea to the uninitiated of just how thorough and searching these creatures are in ridding a house of every bit of animal or vegetable matter in it. Perhaps, however, the narration of the following bit of PERSONAL EXPERIENCE may help to illustrate it. I had returned from a day's tramp in the hills, laden with trophies in the shape of tropical insects, Borne of them, perhaps, new to the eyes of scientists, and all of certain value, when I was called out of my house by the cry, "The driver ants, the driver ants r* Hastily placing most of my collections in , glass jars and tin boxes, so as to be out of the reach of the t invaders, and gathering such clothes as I would need for a day or two, I made a rather undignified retreat. After -[had done so I remembered that I had left some rare beetles pinned in a box that wbb in a pocket of my collecting coat, but as tho coat had been placed in a strong chest, and thiß chest was heavily soented w_th,nap_--halinor "tar camphor," andthe li& fittest down very tight, I felt that they were safe. The next morning when I went baok, after a night spent in my hammock, IN A TAMARIND TREE, I found that of a buuch of bananas, consisting of a thick stem aud about one hundred of the fruit, there was no trace whateyer, save the dangling string with which it had been hung from the ceiling ; and not a vestige of bread, chocolate, coffee, and other eatable odds and ends could be found on the thoroughly cleaned shelves on which Borne food had been left. Even the cranks between the floorboards ? had been oleaned out, the partioles of edible matter having been oarried away or devoured and the mere dust left where it could easily be Bwept away. Tbis was not f so bad, for a good cleaning, neyep. hurts a house in the tropics j but when I' came to examine my chest and found that a hole quite^ two inches in diameter had been torn in one end through an inch board of hard wood, that the box in my coat pocket had also been pierced and every one of the pins on whiiih my beetles had been a ranged i-.f.00d iv piutee as empty and olean us when taken out of the paper, I had a belter idea of the thoroughness of these, tiny scavengers than ever before.