Wild life under the equator

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

MARCH OF BASHIKOUAY ANTS.

As I have said before, they travel night and day. Many a time some of you who have perused my books may have read that I have been roused from sleep and obliged to rush from the hut, sometimes into the water, or at other times have been obliged to protect myself with fires, or by spreading hot ashes or boiling water around me. Often I have suffered terribly from their advanced guard, who had got into my clothes, and who would not get out, and soon managed to get on my body.

When they enter a house they clear it of all living things. Roaches are devoured in an instant. Rats and mice spring round the room in vain. An overwhelming force of ants kills a strong rat in less than a minute or two, and in an incredibly short time, despite the most frantic struggles, its bones are stripped. Every living thing in the house is devoured. Centipedes, scorpions, small spiders can not escape, and of this I was glad. They will not touch vegetable matter. Thus they are in reality very useful; for without them the insects would become so numerous that man would not be able to live. I always rejoiced when they got hold of a serpent, though these are pretty shy, and manage generally to get out of the way, except when they are in a state of torpor.

When on the march the insect world flees before them, and, as you have seen in the beginning of the chapter, I had the approach of a bashikouay army heralded to me by this means. Wherever they go they make a clean sweep, even ascending to the top of many small trees in search of birds’ nests, and to devour the young of caterpillars. They pursue their poor prey with an unrelenting fury, and seem to be animated with the genius of destruction. Their manner of attack is by an impetuous leap. Instantly the strong pincers are fastened, and they only let go when the piece seized upon gives way. If they were large they would certainly be the most fearful creature man could ever encounter, and they would destroy all the living creatures of the forest.

When on their line of march they often find little streams—which of course are not very wide; they throw themselves across and form a bridge, a living bridge, connected by two trees or high bushes on opposite sides of the stream. This is done with great care, and is effected by a great number of ants, each of which clings with his fore-claws to his next neighbor’s body or hind-claws. Thus they form a high, safe bridge, over which the whole vast regiment marches in regular order. If disturbed, or if the bridge is broken by the violence of some animal, they instantly attack the offender with the greatest animosity.

To find the place for these bridges must require a good deal of sagacity. By one way or another they find a spot where on each side there is a branch of a tree, almost always a dead one, that has fallen on the ground, and which overlaps the stream. Often in falling this tree has broken in two pieces, and the piece on the other side almost joins it. The branch on the further side must be lower on the ground, so that, as they form the bridge, they begin it from the higher side.

THE BASHIKOUAY ANT, MAGNIFIED TO TWICE ITS NATURAL SIZE.

VARIOUS SPECIES.

These bashikouay do smell things a long way off, and they are guided by their sense of smell. They are quite large, often the ordinary-sized ones being half an inch long, and are armed with very powerful fore-legs and large strong jaws, or nippers, with which they bite. The head is almost if not quite as large as the body; the large ones are almost one inch in length. The kind of which I have spoken is dark brown in color, but I have found in the mountains of the interior a somewhat larger species, almost black, and intensely voracious. Besides these two there is still another species of bashikouay, which I have only met two or three times in the mountains south of the equator. It is of a great size, at least double the size of the one I have just spoken to you about. The body is grayish-white in color, the head of reddish-black; its fangs are very powerful, and it is able to make a clean bite out of one’s legs. It is thus a very formidable animal, but fortunately its motions are not as quick as those of its fierce brother; for if they were, I do not know what would become of a man in the midst of such an army. It does not march in such vast armies, nor does it precipitate itself upon its prey with such an irresistible fury. In its motions it is almost sluggish. They do not invade villages, or climb trees in pursuit of prey, and they are not so voracious as their fellows before mentioned. If they were, they would doubtless clear the country of every living thing, for they are much more powerful. They are, in fact, to the other ants what whales are to fish. If as ferocious, they would depopulate the country, and would themselves have to starve and then disappear.