Piso, De Laet, Marcgrave, and other writers mention their being an article of food in different parts of South America. Piso speaks of yellow Ants called _Cupia_ inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which many used for food, as well as a large species under the name of _Tama-joura_: “Alia præterea datur grandis species _Tama-ioura_ dicta digiti articulum adæquans. Quarum etiam clunes dessicantur et friguntur pro bono alimento.”[547] Says De Laet: “Denique formicæ hic visuntur grandissimæ, quas indigenæ vulgo comedunt; et in foris venales habent.”[548] And again: “Formicis vescebantur, easquæ studiose ad victum educabant.”[549] Lucas Fernandes Piedrahita, in his Historia General de las Conquistas del Nuevo Regno de Granada, states that cakes of Cazave and Ants were eaten in that country: “Al tiempo de tostarlas para este efecto, dan el mismo olor que los quesillos, que se labran para comer asados.”[550] Herrera says, the natives of New Granada made their main food of Ants, which they kept and reared in their yards.[551] Sloane confirms this, and says they are publicly sold in the markets.[552] Abbeville de Noromba tells us these great Ants are fricasseed.[553] Schomburgk, in his journey to the sources of the Essequibo, one evening saw all the boys of a village out shouting and chasing with sticks and palm leaves a large species of winged Ant, which they collected in great numbers in their calabashes for food. When roasted or boiled, he says, the natives considered these insects a great delicacy.[554] Humboldt informs us that Ants are eaten by the Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for sauce.[555] Mr. Consett, in his Travels in Sweden, makes mention of a young Swede who ate live Ants with the greatest relish imaginable.[556] This author states also, that in some parts of Sweden Ants are distilled along with rye, to give a flavor to the inferior kinds of brandy.[557] The inhabitants of the Tonga Group have a superstitious belief that when their kings, and matabooles, or inferior chiefs, die, they are wafted to Bulotu--“the island of the blessed,” but the spirits of the lower class remain in the world, and feed on Ants and lizards.[558] Ants also furnish us with an acid, called by the chemists _Formic_, which is said to answer the same purposes as the acetous acid. It is obtained in two modes: 1st. By distillation; the insects are introduced into a glass retort, distilled by a gentle heat, and the acid is found in the recipient. 2d. By the process called lixiviation; the Ants are washed in cold water, spread out upon a linen cloth, and boiling water poured over them, which becomes charged with the acid part.[559] Formic acid is shed so sensibly by the wood Ant, _Formica rufa_, when an Ant-hill is stirred, that it can occasion an inflammation. If a living frog, it is asserted, be fixed upon an Ant-hill which is deranged, the animal will die in less than five minutes, even without having been bitten by the Ants.[560]