The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-04-17
SOME DANGEROUS
FOES IN CUBA
An Invading Army Must Fight
Fierce Insects.
THE GREAT SOLDIER ANTS
That Kill Everything in their Pathway-The
Other Ants With Burning Stings
and the Playful
Snakes.
THE GREAT SOLDIER ANT;
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
"If an American army goes to Cuba let
1t look out for the ants says G. r.
o Reilly, the snake expert. "They have
the same ants in Cuba that bother in 9th e.
or tropical countries. All who have lived
an outdoor life in these regions will agree
with me that the greatest trouble comes,
not from the heat, not from sickness nor
ferocious beasts, but from insects. Tar
antulas and scorpions are not often met
with, mosquitoes are not worse than in
some northern lands, but the ants are
everywhere a constant worriment, and
most of them sting and bite fiercely. In
the West Indian islands all provisions,
such as meat, butter, sugar, bread, must
be kept in well-closed box of wire gauze
to preserve them from the ants Nor is
it enough to inclose the eatables in the
box. The box must be suspended from the
ceiling of the pantry by single wire.
Even this is not always sufficient pro-
lection. for I have known the sugar ants
to make their way down the suspending
wire and be found in the morning drown
ing by scores in the condensed milk and
making the white sugar look brown with
their numbers. They get into loaves of
bread and bore their way from one cavity
to another until every air bubble in each
loaf has its ant or ants, and the bread
has to be thrown INTO boiling water and
fed to the dogs and fowls. have often
seen one loaf occupied by more than a
thousand ants.
& ION one occasion while we were snake
hunting, my three companions had fallen
asleep in their hammocks, while I was
watching too eagerly for an anaconda to
notice anything else. Suddenly out of the
stiffness there came a piercing yell or
shrek from one of the sleepers. Think
ing an anaconda had seized him, for we
were all thinking of anacondas, we sprang
out upon our feet, and without any of
us uttering single word, we all took to
our heels through the woods. After going
about hundred yards we stopped and be-
gan frantically beating off the large SOL
der ants that were climbing up our legs.
The fact was that the hunting or soldier
ants, called In Cuba hormigas bravas had
come on their march to our camping place,
and having run up the tree trunks from
which our hammocks were slung, were be-
ginning to get at us by climbing along the
: hammock ropes. On returning to the place
where our hammocks were yet swinging,
we had to halt forty yards off, for the
whole forest floor was covered as far as
we could see with myraids of fierce in
sects.
1--WE watched them searching under and
over every fallen leaf, in every hole,
around and beneath rocks and decaying
logs, up the tree trunks and over every
branch of the brush-wood, as they passed.
No living thing escaped them; spiders,
mice, and young birds in the nest they de-
stroyed as they found them, while snakes,
squirrels, lizards, armadilloes, and all 9TH
er creatures that had strength and agility
fled before their advance. 1t was three
hours before we could get back to our
hammocks
. my friend, Albert Carr. of caparo, In