Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/186

Let me be cool, let me bear it all in meek and seemly resignation, above all let not my trials tempt me to launch forth a torrent of invectives against my dumb tormentors. What! though Job the patient, the much-enduring, may never have suffered at the hands, or rather jaws, of so many relentless persecutors as has done—and does do—your particularly humble servant at your service. What! though—But why, harrowing with a tale of woe, should I aggravate, by suspense, the lacerated feelings of my already sympathizing reader. Enough:—let me briefly to the point; my complaint is—why should I disguise it—ants! execrable, unmitigated ants!

Know, then, all men, that I, the martyr par excellence, have ever been the butt of insects: while yet the tenant of a cradle never, more than I, was hapless babe a victim to the midnight prowling Cimex, which in later years has lain in wait for me at sea-side villages: know that at the tender age of six a contest with a humble bee respecting the proprietorship of some toothsome morsel resulted in my being ignominiously be-humbled. Furthermore, be it known, that after an unwarrantable, though purely accidental, intrusion upon the inmates of a wasps' nest, into which I had most literally put my foot, a score of stings of these aculeate individuals were, once upon a time, extracted from my suffering body by aid of the inevitable key; and that, at a more advanced period of my existence, my first attempt at beetle-hunting ended in an inglorious and precipitate retreat homewards with many hundred fleas anent my person, collected promiscuously during a hasty investigation of an untenanted henhouse, which, unfortunately for me, had looked likely.

Gaunt gnats, gadflies, and a host of other double-barrelled excruciators show an invariable and undesirable preference for my surfaces, sucking my blood—freely, for I am juicy. Bluebottles, in evident anticipation of my speedy demise, assail me with ferocity, and not unfrequently get off unscathed; while with ticks, bobs, harvestmen, and the rest of these human tormentors, excepting, perhaps, the insinuating scabies, and one or two others I could mention, my experience has been both practical and painful. Indeed, it would seem that most of the objectionable members of our "invertebrate zoological fauna" have selected me to perform their, maybe interesting, but, to me, excessively unpleasant, operations on. But, there—what are these compared with ants, which, now as I advance in years, are my unbidden guests.

I am not speaking of the bodily pain inflicted by the pismire, although with that I am perfectly familiar, but of the mental havoc played by certain little emmets in their destructive raids upon one's peace of mind and property simultaneously.

The subject of my paper rejoices in the appellation of Diplorhoptrum molesta; its description is—but no matter—if anyone should desire to be personally acquainted with it, I can supply him with living types beyond his expectations; suffice it, the creature is small and brown, and of a highly predaceous nature, attacking not merely stately man himself, but devouring with an avidity perfectly preposterous when the diminutive bulk of the consumer is considered, articles of consumption in daily domestic use; and, what now more nearly concerns the narrator, jubilating in the annihilation of the moth tribe, be they living or dead, in all their stages (eggs included). And here I may as well confess that my juvenile, as well as more adult, proclivities, have undoubtedly led me to work the Lepidoptera of my country, which reminds me that the infliction under which I groan may possibly be but a just retribution for having, in my time, stifled, impaled, and converted into specimens so many moths and butterflies; be that as it may, it is not to the point, and therefore the less said about it the better.

But to proceed. This little pest inhabits houses in various parts of London; some localities producing it in such prodigious quantities as actually to impart considerable seasoning to the viands with which it is unavoidably served up;—indeed, I have been credibly informed by one of the first entomologists of the day that, on changing his abode after a protracted residence among the house ants, he had greatly missed the flavour of them. The neighbourhood of Russell Square, a site in appalling proximity to our National Collection, appears to abound in this living commodity, and Brighton, as I see by a paper in the Entomologists' Monthly, also harbours it.

As to the habits of this industrious little creature, how shall I describe them? Let us imagine that, after a hard and successful day's collecting, the insect-hunter has stretched and, heedless of Diplorhoptrum, stowed away his treasures; we will suppose that he (said insect-hunter) has gone to roost radiant with the captures of the day, and that his slumbers are dotted o'er with phantoms of impossible new species—I say we will suppose so. The morrow dawns, and "O! wondrous changes of a fatal scene still varying to the last," the features of our hero now present just a trifle less of that soft expression of ineffable satisfaction which erewhile they wore, as he gazes on the wreck of what was yester-e'en a galaxy of beauty—Yes! there they are, plying their jaws, in groups around each specimen, hard at work—nibbling antennæ—trampling with a thousand tiny tarsi the "fluff" from off the wings—playing at hide and seek in the capacious sinuses already formed within the bodies of their disembowelled victims—or baiting to the death some living prisoned moth.—Poor, innocent, industrious, unsuspecting little brutes, it is your last meal. I draw a veil. But what availeth benzine, is not