Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 14

"They do better, in my opinion, who observe the Pismire, and grow rich by following his manners in labor, industry, rest, and study. We read of Midas that he was the richest King of all the West, and when he was a boy, the Pismires carryed grains of wheat into his mouth while he slept, and so foreshowed without doubt that he should be endowed with the Pismire's prudence, and should by his labour and frugality, gain so much riches, that he should be called the Golden boy of fortune, and the Darling of prosperity. _aelia.n.u.s._ And when the Ants did devour and eat up the live serpent of Tiberius Caesar, which he so dearly loved, did they not thereby give him sufficient warning that he should take heed to himself for fear of the mult.i.tude, by whom he was afterwards cruelly murthered? _Suetonius._"[509]

Of the wars and battles of the Ants, now so familiar from the writings of Huber and others, one of the oldest records is that given by aeneas Sylvius, who afterward became Pope Pius II., of an engagement contested with obstinacy by a great and a small species, on the trunk of a pear-tree. "This action," he states, "was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity." Another engagement of the same description is recorded by Olaus Magnus, as having happened previous to the expulsion of Christiern the Second, of Sweden, and the smallest species, having been victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers that had been killed, while they left those of their adversaries a prey to the birds.[510]

Alexander Ross, in his Appendix to the Arcana Microcosmi, p. 219, tells us: "That the cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians, and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians, in which about thirty thousand men were slain, were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of Emmets (Ants)."[511]

Ants were used in divination by the Greeks, and generally foretold good.[512] They were also considered an attribute of Ceres.[513]

The following extract is from an English North-Country chap-book, ent.i.tled the Royal Dream Book: "To dream of Ants or Bees denotes that you will live in a great town or city, or in a large family, and that you will be industrious, happy, well married, and have a large family."[514] The Ant and the Bee are common figures to express these predictions.

I heard a mother once say to her child, "Never destroy Ants, for they are fairies, and will so bewitch our cows that they will give no milk."

This superst.i.tion prevails in particular about Was.h.i.+ngton and in Virginia.

Mrs. Meer Ha.s.san Ali, in an interesting article on the Ants of India, remarks that she has often witnessed the Hindoos, male and female, depositing small portions of sugar near Ants' nests as acts of charity to commence the day with.

With the natives of India, this lady also tells us, it is a common opinion that wherever the Red-ants colonize, prosperity attends the owner of that house.[515]

We read in Purchas's _Pilgrims_, that "the natives of Cambaia and Malabar will go out of the path if they light on an Ant-hill, lest they might happily treade on some of them."[516]

Other insects, as will be noticed in the course of this volume, are looked upon by these people with the same respect.

Moufet says: "In Isthmus the priests sacrificed Pismires to the sun, either because they thought the sun the most beautiful, and therefore they would offer unto him the most beautiful creature, or the most wise, as seeing all things, and therefore they offered unto him the wisest creature."[517]

In the twenty-seventh chapter of the Koran, which was revealed at Mecca, and ent.i.tled the Ant, we find, among other strange things, an odd story of the Ant, which has therefore given name to the chapter. It is as follows: "And his armies were gathered together unto Solomon, consisting of genii, and men, and birds; and they were led in distant bands, until they came to the valley of Ants.[518] And an Ant, seeing the hosts approaching, said, O Ants, enter ye into your habitations, lest Solomon and his army tread you under foot, and perceive it not. And Solomon smiled, laughing at her words, and said, O Lord, excite me that I may be thankful for thy favour, wherewith thou hast favoured me, and my parents; and that I may do that which is right, and well pleasing unto thee: and introduce me, through thy mercy, into paradise, among my servants, the righteous."[519]

Thevenot mentions "Solomon's Ant" among the "Beasts that shall enter into Paradise" in the belief of the Turks, and gives the following reason: "Solomon was the greatest king that ever was, for all creatures obey'd him, and brought him presents, amongst others, an Ant brought him a Locust, which it had dragged along by main force: Solomon, perceiving that the Ant had brought a thing bigger than itself, accepted the present, and preferred it before all other creatures."[520]

Plutarch, speaking of the Ant, says: "Aratus in his prognostics setteth this down for a rain toward, when they bring forth their seeds and grains (pupae), and lay them abroad to take the air:

'When Ants make haste with all their eggs aload, Forth of their holes to carry them abroad.'"[521]

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, it is also a.s.serted that "when Ants walk the thickest, and more than in vsuall numbers, meeting together confusedly, it is a manifest signe of raine."[522]

It is related of the celebrated Timour, that being once forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, he sat alone many hours; and, desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless condition, at length fixed his observation upon an Ant which was carrying a grain of corn (probably a pupa) larger than itself, up a high wall. Numbering the efforts it made to accomplish this object, he found that the grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground; but the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. "This sight," said Timour, "gave me courage at the moment, and I have never forgotten the lesson it conveyed."[523]

Plutarch, in his comparison between land and water creatures, narrates the following anecdote: "Gleanthus the Philosopher, although he maintaineth not that beasts have any use of reason, made report nevertheless that he was present at the sight of such a spectacle and occurrent as this. There were (quoth he) a number of Ants which went toward another Ant's hole, that was not their own, carrying with them the corpse of a dead Ant; out of which hole, there came certain other Ants to meet them on the way (as it were) to parl with them, and within a while returned back and went down again; after this they came forth a second, yea a third time, and retired accordingly until in the end they brought up from beneath (as it were a ransom for the dead body) a grub or little worm; which the others received and took upon their shoulders, and after they had delivered in exchange the aforesaid corpse, departed home."[524]

Of the ingenuity of the Ant in removing obstacles, the following anecdote is a very appropriate ill.u.s.tration: A gentleman of Cambridge one day observed an Ant dragging along what, with respect to the creature's size, might be denominated a log of wood. Others were severally employed, each in its own way. Presently the Ant in question came to an ascent, where the weight of the wood seemed for a while to overpower him: he did not remain long perplexed with it; for three or four others, observing his dilemma, came behind and pushed it up. As soon, however, as he got it on level ground, they left it to his care, and went to their own work. The piece he was drawing happened to be considerably thicker at one end than the other. This soon threw the poor fellow into a fresh difficulty; he unluckily dragged it between two bits of wood. After several fruitless efforts, finding it would not go through, he adopted the only mode that even a man in similar circ.u.mstances would have taken: he came behind it, pulled it back again, and turned it on its edge; when, running again to the other end, it pa.s.sed through without the slightest difficulty.[525]

Franklin was much inclined to believe Ants could communicate their thoughts or desires to one another, and confirmed his opinion by several experiments. Observing that when an Ant finds some sugar, it runs immediately under ground to its hole, where, having stayed a little while, a whole army comes out, unites and marches to the place where the sugar is, and carry it off by pieces; and that if an Ant meets with a dead fly, which it cannot carry alone, it immediately hastens home, and soon after some more come out, creep to the fly, and carry it away; observing this, he put a little earthen pot, containing some treacle, into a closet, into which a number of Ants collected, and devoured the treacle very quickly. He then shook them out, and tied the pot with a thin string to a nail which he had fastened in the ceiling, so that it hung down by the string. A single Ant by chance remained in the pot, and when it had gorged itself upon the treacle, and wanted to get off, it was under great concern to find a way, and kept running about the bottom of the pot, but in vain. At last it found, after many attempts, the way to the ceiling, by going along the string. After it was come there, it ran to the wall, and thence to the ground. It had scarcely been away half an hour, when a great swarm of Ants came out, got up to the ceiling, and crept along the string into the pot, and began to eat again. This they continued till the treacle was all eaten; in the mean time one swarm running down the string, and the other up.[526]

It has been suggested, that in such instances as the preceding, the Ants may have been led by the scent or trace of treacle likely to be left by the solitary prisoner; and the following case, related by Bradley, is quoted to favor the opinion: "A nest of Ants in a n.o.bleman's garden discovered a closet, many yards within the house, in which conserves were kept, which they constantly attended till the nest was destroyed.

Some, in their rambles, must have first discovered this depot of sweets, and informed the rest of it. It is remarkable that they always went to it by the same track, scarcely varying an inch from it, though they had to pa.s.s through two apartments; nor could the sweeping and cleaning of the rooms discomfit them, or cause them to pursue a different route."[527]

Dionisio Carli, of Piacenza, a missionary in Congo, lying sick at that place, was awakened one night by his monkey leaping on his head, and almost at the same time by his Blacks crying out, much to his surprise, "Out! Out! Father!" Thoroughly awake now, Carli asked them what was the matter? "The Ants," they cried, "are broke out, and there is no time to be lost!" Not being able to stir, he bid them carry him into the garden, which they did, four of them lifting him upon his straw bed; and yet though very quick about it, the Ants had already commenced crawling up his legs. After shaking them off their master, the Blacks took straw and fired it on the floor of four rooms, where these insects by this time were over half a foot thick. The pests being thus destroyed, Carli was conveyed back to his chamber, where he found the stench so great from the burnt bodies, that he was forced, he says, to hold his _monkey_ close to his nose!

These Ants, Carli relates, ate up every living object within their reach; and of one cow, which was accidentally left over night in the stable through which they pa.s.sed, nothing but the bones were found the next morning.[528] We need not wonder at this, if we believe what Bosman has said of the Black-ants of Guinea, which were so surprisingly rapacious that no animal could stand before them. He relates an instance where they reduced for him one of his live sheep in one night to a perfect skeleton, and that so nicely that it surpa.s.sed the skill of the best anatomists.[529] Du Chaillu says the elephant and gorilla fly before the attack of the Bas.h.i.+kouay-ants, and the black men run for their lives. Many a time has he himself, he says, been awakened out of a sleep, and obliged to rush out of his hut and into the water to save his life![530] The Driver-ants[531] of Western Africa, _A. nomma arcens_, have been known to kill the _Python natalensis_, the largest serpent of that part of the world.[532]

Col. St. Clair, after a visit by a species of small Red-ants, makes mention of the following instance, among others, of their singular destructiveness: "I next discovered that a little pet deer, which I had purchased from a negro, was extremely ill. I could not discover the cause of its malady, until, placing it on its legs, I observed that it would not let one foot touch the ground, and, on examining it, I found, to my grief, that the Red-ants had absolutely eaten a hole into the bone. The poor little animal pined all that day and died in the evening."[533]

Capt. Stedman relates that the Fire-ants of Surinam caused a whole company of soldiers to start and jump about as if scalded with boiling water; and its nests were so numerous that it was not easy to avoid them.[534] And Knox, in his account of Ceylon, mentions a black Ant, called by the natives _Coddia_ or _Kaddiya_,[535] which, he says, "bites desperately, as bad as if a man were burnt by a coal of fire; but they are of a n.o.ble nature, and will not begin unless you disturb them." The reason the Singhalese a.s.sign for the horrible pain occasioned by their bite is curious, and is thus related by Knox: "Formerly these Ants went to ask a wife of the _Noya_, a venomous and n.o.ble kind of snake;[536]

and because they had such a high spirit to dare to offer to be related to such a generous creature, they had this virtue bestowed upon them, that they should sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a wife of the Noya, they should have had the privilege to sting full as bad as he."[537] Capt. Stedman has a story of a large Ant that stripped the trees of their leaves, to feed, as was supposed by the natives of Surinam, a blind serpent under ground,[538] which is somewhat akin to this: as is also another, related to Kirby and Spence by a friend, of a species of Mantis, taken in one of the Indian islands, which, according to the received opinion among the natives, was the parent of all their serpents.[539] But, the reverse: Among the harmless snakes of Mexico is a beautiful one about a foot in length, and of the thickness of the little finger, which appears to take pleasure in the society of Ants, insomuch that it will accompany these insects upon their expeditions, and return with them to their usual nest. From this peculiarity it is called by the Spaniards and Mexicans the "Mother of the Ants."[540]

When in Africa, Du Chaillu was told by the natives that criminals in former times were exposed to the path of the Bas.h.i.+kouay-ants, as the most cruel way of putting them to death.[541] This dreadful manner of torturing was at one time also practiced by the Singhalese, and I have heard that several British soldiers have thus met their fate. The Termites have been referred to before as having been employed for a similar purpose.

To check the ravages of the Coffee-bug, _Lecanium coffea_, Walker, which for several years was devastating some of the plantations of Ceylon, the experiment was made of introducing the Red-ants, _Formica smaragdina_, Fab., which feed greedily on the Coccus.[542] But the remedy threatened to be attended with some inconvenience, for, says Tennent, the Malabar coolies, with bare and oiled skins, were so frequently and fiercely a.s.saulted by the Ants as to endanger their stay on the estates.

The pupae or coc.o.o.ns of the Ants, during the day, are placed near the surface of the Ant-hills to obtain heat, which is indispensable to the growth of the inclosed insects. This is taken advantage of in Europe to collect the coc.o.o.ns in large quant.i.ties as food for nightingales and larks. The coc.o.o.ns of a species of Wood-ant, _Formica rufa_, are the only kind chosen. In most of the towns of Germany, one or more individuals make a living during summer by this business alone. "In 1832," says a contributor to the Penny Encyclopedia, "we visited an old woman at Dottendorf, near Bern, who had collected for fourteen years.

She went to the woods in the morning, and collected in a bag the surfaces of a number of Ant-hills where the coc.o.o.ns were deposited, taking Ants and all home to her cottage, near which she had a small tiled shed covering a circular area, hollowed out in the center, with a trench full of water around it. After covering the hollow in the center with leafy boughs of walnut or hazel, she strewed the contents of her bag on the level part of the area within the trench, when the Nurse-ants immediately seized the coc.o.o.ns, and carried them into a hollow under the boughs. The coc.o.o.ns were thus brought into one place, and after being from time to time removed, and black ones separated by a boy who spread them out on a table, and swept off what were bad with a strong feather, they were ready for market, being sold for about 4_d._ or 6_d._ a quart.

Considerable quant.i.ties of these coc.o.o.ns are dried for winter food of birds, and are sold in the shops."[543]

Ants not only furnish food to man for his birds, but also food for himself, in both the pupa and imago states. Nicoli Conti, who traveled in India in the early part of the fifteenth century, says the Siamese eat a species of Red-ant, of the size of a small crab, which they consider a great delicacy seasoned with pepper.[544] At the present day, the pupae of a species of Ants are a costly luxury with these people.

They are not much larger than grains of sand, and are sent to table curried, or rolled in green leaves, mingled with shreds or very fine slices of fat pork.[545] And in the province of Michuacan, Mexico, is a singular species of Ant, which carries on its abdomen "a little bagful of a sweet substance, of which the children are very fond: the Mexicans suppose this to be a kind of honey collected by the insect; but Clavigero thinks it rather its eggs."[546]

Piso, De Laet, Marcgrave, and other writers mention their being an article of food in different parts of South America. Piso speaks of yellow Ants called _Cupia_ inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which many used for food, as well as a large species under the name of _Tama-joura_: "Alia praeterea datur grandis species _Tama-ioura_ dicta digiti articulum adaequans. Quarum etiam clunes dessicantur et friguntur pro bono alimento."[547] Says De Laet: "Denique formicae hic visuntur grandissimae, quas indigenae vulgo comedunt; et in foris venales habent."[548] And again: "Formicis vescebantur, easquae studiose ad victum educabant."[549] Lucas Fernandes Piedrahita, in his Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Regno de Granada, states that cakes of Cazave and Ants were eaten in that country: "Al tiempo de tostarlas para este efecto, dan el mismo olor que los quesillos, que se labran para comer asados."[550] Herrera says, the natives of New Granada made their main food of Ants, which they kept and reared in their yards.[551]

Sloane confirms this, and says they are publicly sold in the markets.[552] Abbeville de Noromba tells us these great Ants are frica.s.seed.[553] Schomburgk, in his journey to the sources of the Essequibo, one evening saw all the boys of a village out shouting and chasing with sticks and palm leaves a large species of winged Ant, which they collected in great numbers in their calabashes for food. When roasted or boiled, he says, the natives considered these insects a great delicacy.[554] Humboldt informs us that Ants are eaten by the Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for sauce.[555]

Mr. Consett, in his Travels in Sweden, makes mention of a young Swede who ate live Ants with the greatest relish imaginable.[556] This author states also, that in some parts of Sweden Ants are distilled along with rye, to give a flavor to the inferior kinds of brandy.[557]

The inhabitants of the Tonga Group have a superst.i.tious belief that when their kings, and matabooles, or inferior chiefs, die, they are wafted to Bulotu--"the island of the blessed," but the spirits of the lower cla.s.s remain in the world, and feed on Ants and lizards.[558]

Ants also furnish us with an acid, called by the chemists _Formic_, which is said to answer the same purposes as the acetous acid. It is obtained in two modes: 1st. By distillation; the insects are introduced into a gla.s.s retort, distilled by a gentle heat, and the acid is found in the recipient. 2d. By the process called lixiviation; the Ants are washed in cold water, spread out upon a linen cloth, and boiling water poured over them, which becomes charged with the acid part.[559]

Formic acid is shed so sensibly by the wood Ant, _Formica rufa_, when an Ant-hill is stirred, that it can occasion an inflammation. If a living frog, it is a.s.serted, be fixed upon an Ant-hill which is deranged, the animal will die in less than five minutes, even without having been bitten by the Ants.[560]

We read in Purchas's Pilgrims that the large Ant of the West Indies is "so poysonfull that herewith the Indians infect their arrowes so remedilesse, that not foure of an hundred which are wounded escape."[561]

The medicinal virtues of the Ant are as follows: "Ants, _Formica minor_ of Schroder, heat and dry, and incite to venery; their acid smell mightily refreshes the vital spirits. They are said to cure the Flora, Lepra, and Lentigo. The eggs (pupae) are effectual against deafness, and correct the hairiness of the cheeks of children being rubbed thereon."

The Horse-ant, _Formica major_, Schrod., "provokes to venery, and the oil thereof, by infusion, is good for the gout and palsy."[562]

Sloane tells us the Spaniards in the West Indies have a very highly valued medicated earth called "Makimaki," which he thinks is made of the nests of Ants.[563]

There is a species of Ant in Cayenne, _Formica bispinosa_, which collects from the bombax and silk-cotton trees a sort of lint which the natives value much as a styptic in cases of hemorrhage.[564]

The magicians, as mentioned by Pliny, recommended that the parings of all the finger-nails should be thrown at the entrance of Ant-holes, and the first Ant to be taken which should attempt to draw one into the hole; for if this, they a.s.serted, be attached to the neck of a patient, he will experience a speedy cure.[565]

The two following remarkable cures effected by Ants of themselves are worthy of being noticed: Schuman, a missionary among the negroes of Surinam, relates in one of his letters, that after a most dangerous attack of the acclimating fever, his body was covered with boils and painful sores. He lay in his cot as helpless as a child, and had no one to administer any relief or food but a poor old negro woman, who sometimes was obliged to follow the rest to the plantations in the woods. One morning while she was absent, after spending a most restless and painful night, he observed at sunrise an immense host of Ants entering through the roof, and spread themselves over the inside of his chamber; and expecting little else than that they would make a meal of him, he commended his soul to G.o.d, and hoped thus to be released from all suffering. They presently covered his bed, and entering his sores caused him the most tormenting pain. However, they soon quitted him, and continued their march, and from that time he gradually recovered his health.[566]

The second is a case of stiffness in the knee effectually cured: In 1798, Mrs. Jane Crabley, aged 56 years, began to complain of a most torturing pain, and considerable enlargement of the knee-pan, which she described as, and which her neighbors believed to be, a smart paroxysm of gout. Early in February, 1799, the inflammation and pain entirely ceased, but the swelling continued, and rather increased. The joint of the knee, from disuse, became perfectly stiff, and, owing to the particular form and size of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, no relief could be gained by the use of crutches. However, toward the end of May, the Ants became so strangely troublesome to her, that she was sometimes obliged to avail herself of the help of travelers to a.s.sist her in changing her station.

Still, however, they followed her, and seemed entirely attracted by her now useless knee. She was at first considerably annoyed by these little torments, but, in a few days, became not only reconciled to their intrusion, but was desirous of having her chair placed where she imagined them most to abound, even giving them freer access to her knee by turning down her stocking; for, she said, "the cold numbness she suffered just around the patella was eased and relieved by their bite; and that it was even pleasurable;" and, strange to say, these insects bit her nowhere else. The skin at first was pale and sallow, but began now to a.s.sume a lively red color; a clear and subtile liquid oozed from every puncture the Ants had left; the swelling and stiffness of the joint gradually abated; and, on the 25th of July, she walked home with the help of a stick, and before winter perfectly recovered the use of her limb.[567]

Says Plutarch, as translated by Holland: "The bear finding herself upon fulness given to loth and distaste for food, she goes to find out Ants'

nests, where she sits her down, lilling out her tongue, which is glib and soft with a kind of sweet and slimy humour, until it be full of Ants and their egges, then draweth it she in again, swalloweth them down, and thereby cureth her lothing stomack."[568]

Also, in the Treasurie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we find: "The Bear, being poysoned by the Hearbe named _Mandragoras_, or _Mandrake_, doth purge his bodie by the eating of Ants or Pismires."[569]

M. Huber, initiated in the mysteries of the life of these insects, and whose observations can be most relied on, has made us acquainted with two of their maladies: one is a species of vertigo, occasioned, as he thinks, by a too great heat of the sun, and which transforms them for two or three minutes into a sort of bacchantes; the other malady, much more severe, causes them to lose the faculty of directing themselves in a right line. These Ants turn in a very narrow circle, and always in the same direction. A virgin female, inclosed in a sand-box, and attacked by this mania, made a thousand turns by the hour, describing a circle of about an inch in diameter; it continued this operation for seven days, and even during the night.[570]