This is a minute house-ant, found in myriads in every African village in this region, and a great plague; for the least carelessness with food on your part will bring them on you, and ruin every thing you have eatable to which they can gain access. In an African's house all food is suspended from the ceiling by cords which are limed (tarred on the coast) to make the ants' passage impossible. But even then they sometimes drop down on their prey. Tables are set in cups of water on the coast to keep off these troublesome visitors. I was unfortunate enough once to leave my sugar-bowl out in their reach. I returned in less than half an hour for it, and then already it was covered, inside and out, with countless thousands of these little scavengers. The whole bowl, inside and out, was one living, heaving mass of black.

They seem to have a very acute smell. They are never seen till something to eat is within their reach, and then they come -where from I do not know-in such vast numbers that the traveler is not only astonished, but alarmed at such a besieging army.

There are two kinds of these little ants, one red and the other black; but in other respects, so far as I know, alike.

The Black Ant

lives in the forests, generally in rotten trees, and is not troublesome, as it mostly hunts singly, not in swarms, and does not attack man unless it is first disturbed. When it does attack, its bite, as I have experienced, is very sharp and painful; but the pain does not last long, and the poison, if there is any, is not very virulent.

The Red Leaf-ant.

This animal has a singular manner of building its nest. It prefers to live in certain trees, which very often are completely killed by these ingenious house-builders. They choose the end of a branch where there is generally a thick bunch of leaves. These leaves they glue one to the other by their edges in such a way that they make a bag the size of an orange, and this is the nest. It is a very singular sight to see a number of trees in the

forests with pendants of this kind to every limb and branch; for they will build all over a tree, and so occupy and abuse it as very shortly to kill it. The bite of these ants is very painful, and their temper, as with most ants who can defend themselves, very vindictive. Woe to the traveler who inadvertently shakes a tree or branch on which these fellows have built. They immediately fall upon him in great numbers, and bite him without mercy.

There is a reddish-black ant, of medium size, which builds its nest about the roots of certain trees, which it ascends to eat the tender shoots of the branches. Its bite is rather painful, and it often kills the trees on whose shoots it feeds, and about whose roots it lives.

The common Black Sand-ant.

This is, next to the bashikouay, the most to be dreaded of any ant I met in Africa. It is a little black ant, living chiefly in the Camma country near the villages, and found traveling solitarily through the sand of the prairie. Fortunately it is not very nu

merous.

Its bite is not felt at the time, but in a little while after there is a very severe and distressing pain as though a scorpion had bitten you; and this lasts, with intermissions, sometimes for many hours. After suffering half a dozen times from the bite of this little plague, I came to dread it more than any other ant or other venomous insect of Africa. The bashikouay gives you warning, and the bite is only painful at the moment; but this Camma ant attacks singly and unperceived, and you are bitten before you know it.

A Nest-building Ant.

There is also a black ant, which builds a very ingenious hanging nest, suspending it from the branches of trees. This nest is generally two feet long by a foot in diameter, and inside is full of galleries and highways, where work is done, and food is stored, and eggs are laid, and the young are raised. To make these nests safe and water-proof in the heavy rains which prevail here, the ants construct them just as our houses are roofed or shingled, with this difference, that while the tiers of leaf which they use to shingle their building overlap each other, and thus shed the water, they do not touch each other-by which means a fine system of ventilation is kept up in the nest.

UNDERGROUND BASHIKOUAY.

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Small Underground Bashikouay.

This ant is not so much dreaded as the formidable reddishblack bashikouay. It is smaller, of a reddish color, and does not live in the forest, but in the villages and houses among men. It does not appear in numbers aboveground till it smells food near. Then they issue from a great number of little holes in the ground, whose passages seem all to communicate with each other below the ground. Its bite, though not so terrible as that of the bashikouay, is still very painful. It is not a roving ant.

The large Red Ant.

This, though one of the largest of the African ants, does not attack man. It is a night ant, and is never seen by day; it even avoids candlelight. This ant is excessively fond of cooked meat, and also of sugar. It chooses its habitation in dark corners and hidden closets, where the light will not disturb it.

The Seasons and the Fevers of Equatorial Africa.

THE western coast of Africa has two seasons, the dry and the rainy season. Both the time and the duration of these seasons depend on the latitude and longitude of the place. That is to say, the sun rules the season; and whenever the sun is in the zenith of any given place, that spot has then its rainy season. Thus, when the rains are at their height in Senegambia, it is dry under the equator.

But the duration of the rains is also ruled somewhat by the general formation of the country. A wide open country or sandy desert has less rain and a shorter rainy season than a wooded tract, and the mountain ranges have the most rain of all. Thus, on the mountains in the interior, it rains much more and considerably longer than in the same latitude near the sea-shore.

The rainy season begins in the interior among the mountains, and gradually approaches the sea-shore; and on the other hand, the dry season commences on the sea-board and passes to the interior. There is almost a month of difference in the seasons in these countries, though situated in the same latitude, and only about one hundred and fifty miles apart.

The tract nearest the equator on both sides has the longest rainy season; and as we approach the tropics the rains become shorter and the dry season longer.

Near the equator the rains begin about the middle or end of September, and terminate in the beginning, or sometimes not till the close of May. The dry season lasts from May to September.

But on or near the equator this long rainy season is interrupted by a short period, when the rains cease. This "little dry season" lasts from a month to six weeks, and sometimes even longer. It occurs in the middle or end of December, lasting into January or the beginning of February. During this time it rains very little.

The period of the "little dry season" is, therefore, that at which the sun is nearest the southern tropic. As by the revolution of

the earth the sun becomes non-vertical near the equatorial line, the rains again begin, and grow heaviest when the sun is on the line.

Though the rains are heavy before this little dry season, they are as nothing compared with those which follow. Tornadoes then become frequent, and blow with extraordinary force during February, March, and April.

During the rainy season the streams become swollen and overflow their banks, covering the flat country which borders their courses. The bush vegetation and the grass of the prairies grow luxuriantly; and when the waters retire a heavy deposit of fertile mud remains to enrich the soil, and also to breed fevers and other diseases.

During the rainy season on the coast the prevailing wind is from the southwest.

The hottest part of the year is during the rains. Near the equator the hot months are December, January, February, March, and part of April, though on the coast the thermometer ranges no higher than from 85° to 90°. A few weeks before the dry season sets in the days and nights become cooler, and the wind veers gradually from southwest to south. After the first month of the wet season it rains mostly only at night.

The dry season is the coolest part of the year in this part of Africa, and the natives often suffer from cold. The thermometer ranges as low sometimes, early in the morning, as 64°; the sky is overcast, which is peculiar to this season; the wind on the coast, which had blown from the land in the morning and from the sea by night, now almost turns into one steady sea-breeze, which blows strongly, especially in the afternoon and evening. This is the sickly season in Africa for the negroes, who at this time suffer much from pleurisies and fevers; and it is an uncomfortable fact that it is much healthier and safer for white men to explore the rivers in the dreary rainy season than in the many ways charming dry season.

This dry season is to the negroes what summer is to us. They go more frequently on travels and trading-tours into the interior; their villages are deserted, every body going out to the plantations; they burn the dry brush, cut down trees, and clear the ground for agricultural operations; and when the streams have fairly receded within their banks go out in search of ivory, which