Note 2 — Chapter VIII · RESEARCHES INTO THE ORIGIN OF MIXED OR COMPOUND ANT-HILLS.

The Red Ants of this country, on being disturbed, become excessively angry, and fasten upon the hands and uncovered parts of the body, where they produce an almost intolerable itching, not much unlike that occasioned by the stinging nettle. From Perceval we learn, that the large Red Ants of Ceylon, which live on trees, and build their nests among the branches, bite very severely. This seems, also, to be the case with a black ant found in the same island, which, according to Knox, “bites desperately; as bad as if a man were burnt by a coal of fire.” Anderson, in his account of the natural productions of Van Diemen’s Land, states, among other insects, he met with two that were excessively troublesome, the mosquito, and a large black ant, whose bite, he observes, occasioned very severe pain. Sir Joseph Banks notices a green ant, which he saw in New South Wales, that produces a pain equal to the sting of a bee; and Stedman informs us, that, at Surinam, the Fire Ant (so called from the burning sensation it occasions) greatly annoyed the soldiers, making them leap about, as if scalded with boiling water.—T.