ANTS THAT CAN KILL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16749, 2 June 1922, Page 10

ANTS THAT CAN KILL.

HORDES WITH THEIR OWN HOUSEMAIDS. Remarkablo stories of ants arc told by Mr William Beebe in his new book, " The Edge of the Jungle.” Mr Beebe is not only an accomplished writer; ho is also famous as a zoologist; and his observations were made at the Tropical Research Station in British Guiana, so that he speaks with no little authority. The best tilings in a really admirable study of wild life in the tropics are the accounts of ant communities, watched through a strong glass societies which keep housemaid ants to “tidy-up,” and masseur ants to rub the fighters’ tired muscles. The fiercest and most dangerous are tho army ants in their great battalions : “ No creature in the world could stay in the path of this horde and live. To kill an insect or a great bird would require only a few minutes, and the death of a jaguar or a tapir wojild mean only a few more. T could not help thinking of the certain, inexorable fate of a man who, unable to move from bis hammock or to make any defence, would be exposed to their attack. There could be no help for him if but on© of this great host should scent him out and carry tho word back to the rank and file.” Most highly organised arc the atta Bnts, or leaf-cutters, who, it appears, can do pretty nearly everything except vote. “ Attas are such unpalatable creatures that they are singularly free from dangers. The army ants occasionally make use of their trails wlhen they are deserted, but when the two groat races of ants meet each antennaes tho aura of the other and turns respectfully aside.” With elaborate precautions, one of the atta nests was opened up, and proved to contain a. great artificial fungus bed for the special kind of whitish mushroom growth cultivated by the ants. “ The leaves (which they cut and carry into the nest) are chewed thoroughly and built up into the sponge gardens, being used neither for thatch nor for food, but as fertiliser. The spores sprout and proliferate repidly, and at the end of each thread is a little knobbed body filled with liquid. This forms the sole food of the ants in the nest. The fungus is quite unknown outside the nests of these antsand is as artificial as a banana.” Mr Beebe avers that the “ mechanical, vice-like grip ” of the jaws of the fighters among these ants is used by the Indians in surgery. “ In place of stitching up extensive wounds, a number of these giant attas are collected, and their jaws applied to the edges of the skin, which are drawn together. Tho ants take hold, their bodies are sniped off. and the row of jaws remains until the wound is healed.” Of tho ways of the vampire bat he gives a reassuring account. “ Great bats as large as small herons swept down the long galley Where we worked; but the vampires were long in coming, and for months we neither saw nor heard of one. They attacked our servants and we took heart and, night after night exposed our toes as conventionally accepted vampire-bait. Yith a soft little tap a vampire alighted on my chest.” It was seized as it began to bite, but it did no more harm than barely to break the skin, though this was because it was interrupted in its operation of blood-sucking.