The tropical plague of the cockroaches has been introduced into England; but, fortunately, the giant of the family, the Blatta gigantea, a native of many of the warmer parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, is a stranger to our land: and the following truthful description of this disgusting insect gives us every reason to be thankful for its absence:—‘They plunder and erode all kinds of victuals, dressed and undressed, and damage all sorts of clothes, especially such as are touched with powder, pomatum, and similar substances; everything made of leather; books, paper, and various other articles, which if they do not destroy, at least they soil, as they frequently deposit a drop of their excrement where they settle, and, some way or other, by that means damage what they cannot devour. They fly into the flame of candles, and sometimes into the dishes; are very fond of ink and of oil, into which they are apt to fall and perish, in which case they soon turn most offensively putrid—so that a man might as well sit over the cadaverous body of a large animal as write with the ink in which they have died. They often fly into persons’ faces or bosoms, and their legs being armed with sharp spines, the pricking excites a sudden horror not easily described. In old houses they swarm by myriads, making every part filthy beyond description wherever they harbour, which in the daytime is in dark corners, behind clothes—in trunks, boxes, and, in short, every place where they can lie concealed. In old timber and deal houses, when the family is retired at night to sleep, this insect, among other disagreeable properties, has the power of making a noise which very much resembles a pretty smart knocking with the knuckle upon the wainscoting. The Blatta gigantea in the West Indies is therefore frequently known by the name of the drummer. Three or four of these noisy creatures will sometimes be impelled to answer one another, and cause such a drumming noise that none but those who are very good sleepers can rest for them. What is most disagreeable, those who have not gauze curtains are sometimes attacked by them in their sleep; the sick and dying have their extremities attacked; and the ends of the toes and fingers of the dead are frequently stripped both of the skin and flesh.’
According to Tschudi, the cucaracha and chilicabra—two large species of the cockroach—infest Peru in such numbers as almost to reduce the inhabitants to despair. Greedy, bold, cunning, they force their way into every hut, devour the stores, destroy the clothes, intrude into the beds and dishes, and defy every means that is resorted to for their destruction. Fortunately, they are held in check by many formidable enemies, particularly by a small ant, and a pretty little bird (Troglodytes audax) belonging to the wagtail family, which has some difficulty in mastering the larger cockroaches. It first of all bites off their head, and then devours their body, with the exception of their membranaceous wings. After having finished his repast, the bird hops upon the nearest bush, and there begins his song of triumph.
Many other insect plagues might be added to the list, but those I have already enumerated suffice to reconcile us to our misty climate, and to diminish our longing for the palm groves of the torrid zone.
Rivalling the mosquitoes in the art of tormenting man, and perhaps even surpassing them in numbers, the equatorial ants may truly be said to hold a despotic sway over the forest and the savannah, over the thicket and the field. It is hardly possible to penetrate into a tropical wood without being reminded, by their stings and bites, that they consider the visit as an intrusion, while they themselves unceremoniously invade the dwellings of man, and lay ruinous contributions on his stores. The inconceivable number of their species defies the memory of the naturalist, to whom many are even still entirely unknown. From almost microscopical size to an inch in length, of all colours and shades between yellow, red, brown, and black, of the most varied habits and stations, the ants of a single tropical land would furnish study for years to a zealous entomologist. Every family of plants has its peculiar species, and many trees are even the exclusive dwelling-place of some ant nowhere else to be found. In the scathes of leaves, in the corollas of flowers, in buds and blossoms, over and under the earth, in and out of doors, one meets these ubiquitous little creatures, which are undoubtedly one of the great plagues of the torrid zone.
While our indigenous ants cause a disagreeable burning on the skin, by the secretion of a corrosive acid peculiar to the race, the sting or bite of many tropical species causes the most excruciating tortures. ‘I have no words,’ says Schomburgk, ‘to describe the pain inflicted upon me by the mandibles of the Ponera clavata, a large, and, fortunately, not very common ant, whose long black body is beset with single hairs. Like an electric shock the pain instantly shot through my whole body, and soon after acquired the greatest intensity in the breast, and over and under the armpits. After a few minutes I felt almost completely paralysed, so that I could only with the greatest difficulty, and under the most excruciating tortures, totter towards the plantation, which, however, it was impossible for me to reach. I was found senseless on the ground, and the following day a violent wound fever ensued.’
‘Having, while in Angola, accidentally stepped upon a nest of red ants,’ says Livingstone, ‘not an instant seemed to elapse before a simultaneous attack was made on various unprotected parts, up the trousers from below, and on my neck and breast above. The bites of these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat. I jumped about for a second or two, then in desperation tore off all my clothing, and rubbed and picked them off seriatim as quickly as possible! Fortunately, no one observed this rencontre, or word might have been taken back to the village that I had become mad. It is really astonishing how such small bodies can contain so large an amount of ill nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves round after the mandibles are inserted, to produce laceration and pain more than would be effected by the single wound. Frequently, while sitting on the ox, as he happened to tread near a band, they would rush up his legs to the rider, and soon let him know that he had disturbed their march. They possess no fear, attacking with equal ferocity the largest as well as the smallest animals. When any person has leaped over the band, numbers of them leave the ranks and rush along the path, seemingly anxious for a fight.’
But however formidable the weapons of the ants may be, yet the injuries they inflict upon the property of man, pouring over his plantations like a flood, and sweeping away the fruits of his labours, are of a much more lasting and serious nature than their painful bite or venomous sting.
In the West Indies, the brown-black Viviagua, about one-third of an inch long, and with a prickly thorax, is the greatest enemy of the coffee plantations. In one day it will rob a full-grown tree of all its leaves. It digs deep subterranean passages of considerable dimensions and irregular forms, with a great number of hand-high galleries branching out from the sides, and does even more harm to the coffee-plants by its mining operations than by robbing them of their foliage.
Other species are no less destructive to the sugar plantations, either by settling in the interior of the stalks or by undermining the roots so that the plant becomes sickly and dies.
The Saüba or Coushie (Œcodoma cephalotes), a species of ant distinguished by its large head, is the most formidable enemy of the banana and cassava plantations. Such are its numbers that in a very short time it will strip off the leaves of an entire field. Even where their nest is a mile distant from a plantation, these arch depredators know how to find it, and soon form a highway, about half a foot broad, on which they keep up the most active communications with the object of their attack. In masterly order, side by side, one army is seen to move onwards towards the field, while another is returning to the nest. In this last column each individual carries a round piece of leaf, about the size of a sixpence, which is held by one of its edges. If the distance is too great, a party meets the weary carriers half way, and relieves them of their load. Although innumerable ants may thus be moving along, yet none of them will ever be seen to be in the other’s way; and all goes on with the regularity of clock-work.