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to see that the current does not occasionally bring down a dead branch, which lodges and forms a communication between the two sides, A gardener told me that one morning he found one of his beds completely devastated by a nocturnal visit of ants, though his ditch, which was n very broad and deep one, was full of water. Curious to know how the enemy had gained access to a place he supposed so well protected, he set himself to watch their manœuvres and observe the route they took on their return. The workers having finished their night's task, the column soon formed, and proceeded to a tree that stood on the edge of the ditch. Climbing the trunk of this, they advanced to the outer branches, and passed over to an orange-tree that was situated on the other side of the ditch, The victimized gardener had not observed that the branches of the two trees touched each other, and formed a bridge in mid-air. A few weeks before, he had been obliged to re-dig his ditch to twice its former depth, in order to intercept the underground galleries which his indefatigable enemies had practised under the water.

In the houses, things are very different. Ordinarily no attention is paid to these inconvenient neighbors, which run through the rooms, over the tables, and even into the dishes. If too numerous a tribe happen to penetrate the wainscoting and get into a room, they are treated to a sprinkling of boiling water. The squad thereupon make a rapid retreat, in order to hold council over such an unexpected event, to appoint more skilful leaders, und select a less dangerous route; bat if the rain out-doors prevents the ants from getting out through, their subterranean galleries, or if their constructions completely occupy the ground, they are obliged to escape through the holes and fissures of the doors and floors, however abundant the hot shower. When these swarms repeatedly make their appearance, the inhabitants comprehend that there is something more than a single family; in fact, that there is a long series of generations confined in too narrow limits, and trying to spread outside. It is necessary, then, to apply the grand remedy, and a messenger is sent for the formigueiro, or ant-man.

The formigueiro is a man of great importance in a country where the ant has such destructive teeth, or rather mandibles, As the South-American is not given to over-exertion, and moreover as an invasion of ants is too common an event to excite much attention, the ant-man does not ordinarily arrive till a day or two after he is sent for. An enormous forge-bellows which he carries with him constitutes his entire apparatus. After a rapid inspection of the place, he stops up all the openings leading under the house, except a central one, which he enlarges, in order to extemporize a furnace, and allow free passage to the combustible, and to admit the pipe of the bellows. During this operation the negroes go into the neighboring forest, to cut a certain species of wood which he describes to them. The wood being cut and the furnace prepared, a fire is lighted, and by the aid of his enormous bellows he forces the smoke underground through the ant-cells. The smoke, after traversing these porous constructions, escapes everywhere from the fissures in the masonry and through the floor. Then, leaving the care of the fire and the bellows to the negroes, with express orders to keep up the action, he goes through the house to stop with clay all the fissures which permit any escape.

Let us now descend underground, and see what is going on with the ants. At the unusual noise which followed the arrival of the masons charged with stopping up the openings, the industrious insects quickly retreat to their nests, to protect their eggs and watch over their stores. Upon seeing the first suffocating puffs of smoke, they comprehend that they are threatened with an ex-