Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1915 — ANTS THAT ROUTED ROOSEVELT [ARTICLE]

ANTS THAT ROUTED ROOSEVELT

Terrors of Brazilian Jangle Have an Invincible Super-Military Organization. Of all the things Colonel Roosevelt saw and encountered on his last trip to South America, the River of Doubt was not the most extraordinary; nor were the snakes, centipedes, scorpions and jaguars all that, troubled him. Of all the pests of that gruesome Brazilian jungle, the fierce "Soldado” was the worst. And the “Soldado" is not, as it name might imply, a bewhiskered grenadier, nor a mustached hussar, nor a helmeted dragoon, but —an ant! An ant that travels in soldierly phalanxes and columns; that throws out scouts and ■ flankers; that has a commissary department, that is. officered like a regular army; then wheels and changes front with mil tary precision; that is an out-and-out cannibal, and fights with the ferocity of a Bashi-Bazouk! These, with another specimen known as the leaf-bearing ant, invaded the Colonel’s tent,-and; after destroying everything that they could not 'carry away, reformed into a solid square, and moved ’ out with dignity and eclat, with the white remnants of the Colonel’s underwear waving in the breeze by way of trophy banners!

This genus of soldier ant is known as the eciton. They arc subdivided, into many species; but all tire pirates, all Tnurderbus, and all terrible to insect and human alike. The eciton vastator and the eciton erratics. are both as blind -as the night; the former haying sockets, but no eyes, and the latter haying not a vestige of either. Yet both ate as terrible as those that can see. The eciton pgaedator, a small, dark ant, slightly reddish underneath, and varying in length from a fifth to a third of an inch, move out from the hollow places under rocks, or m the-roots of trees where they live, at certain intervals for one Ai? their forays. When every ant is out they form into a solid „ phalanx comprising countless thousands of ants, and Covering Ihree pr four square yards. When they have been closely marshaled, and not a vestige of earth appears between their Squirming bodies, a cloud of flankers is thrown out on either side and a body of scouts in front. all is ready, there 13 a ffonsdod wiggling of antennae by jthe officers in front, and a wiggling by those in the rear, and another wiggling by those on each side; and then, as at a concerted signal, the whole body, phalanx, flankers and skirmishers, moves off over the dry leaves antpTwigs. Their advance sounds like a heavy pattering of rain. Attracted by this sound the birds from the nearby trees hover over them, wheeling and dipping and sailing, and darting from tree to tree as the marauders fcnove swiftly forward. Why the birds are so interested in the ants you shall see presently. Warned by the fluttering <sf the wings of the birds, and the rustling of the leaves as the ants advance, moths, lizards, scorpions, cntipedes,turtles, butterflies, ants of other genuses, rush hither and thither, and to and. fro, and up and down, in the extremity of their terror. Suddenly the scouts«of the ecitons strike them. And then what a rending and tearing* With their cruel, hooked jaws the ants fall to. butterflies are torn to pieces, grasshoppers have their rear legs snapped off, lizards (are n>ade mincemeat, and those insects that have sense enough left to crawl out to the ends of up-cocking twigs where the ants cannot follow, hang there; in palpitating horror. And lo! suddenly the advance guard has passed. But no sooner do the insects that were hanging to the twigs fall to the ground in exhaustion than the main body is upon them. And those inserts that have the power and the sense to fly immediately do so. But they do not get far. No sooner are they off the ground when the birds have them. It is a choice between Scylla and . Chary bdis.When the: main body has passed the ground is strewn with remains of insects. But they do not lie there long. A smaller body of ants issue from the leaves. Here is the eomm(issary i department! These ants pick up the fragments and bear them off; the bright pieces of’ butterfly w :- lizard skins looking like waving over a victorious Another species of eciton travels in columns, with larger and lighter colored officers rushing up and down, keeping them in line. Sometimes these columns measures 300 yards In length. If a human being were to disturb them they would attack him with all the ferocity of their nature. They climb abovO the shoe tops and sink their ja\#s into the skin. Ana the unfortunate human, when he had run far enough, would have to stoop down and pick them off. The blind ecitons travel under the Raves, and when they come to a

bare space of grouiM they burrow under it and make a remarkable tunnel. Sometimes these pestiferous creatures take it into their heads to invade a house. They separate their forces so that they enter every door and window, and none of the insect inmates gets out but winged ones—and generally they are too frightened. The rats and insects know theif. doom is upon them. So, aff-ter all, the soldier-ant invasion is in one way a disguised blessing.—New York World.