Annius writes, that an ancient city situate near the Volscian Lake, and called Contenebra, was in times past overthrown by Ants, and that the place was thereupon commonly called to his day, “the camp of the Ants.”[583] Ctesias makes mention “of a horse-pismire (_i.e._ the bigger kind of them in hollow trees) which was fed by the Magi, till hee grew to such a vast bulke as to devour two pound of flesh a daye.”[584] Martial has written the following beautiful epigram on an Ant inclosed in amber: “While an Ant was wandering under the shade of the tree of Phaeton, a drop of amber enveloped the tiny insect; thus she, who in life was disregarded, became precious by death. “A drop of amber from the weeping plant, Fell unexpected and embalmed an Ant; The little insect we so much contemn Is, from a worthless Ant, become a gem.”[585] It has been said, remarks Mr. Southey, and regarded as a vulgar error, that Ants cannot pass over a line of chalk: the fact, however, is certain. Mr. Coleridge tried the experiment at Malta, he continues, and immediately discovered the cause: The formic acid is so powerful, that it acts upon the chalk, and the legs of the insect are burnt by the instantaneous effervescence![586] Paxamus says, that if you take some Ants and burn them, you will drive away the others, as experience has taught us. Ants also, he continues, will not touch a vessel with honey, although the vessel may happen to be without its cover, if you wrap it in white wool, or if you scatter white earth or ruddle round it. If a person, continues Paxamus, takes a grain of wheat carried by an Ant with the thumb of his left hand, and lays it in a skin of Phœnician dye, and ties it round the head of his wife, it will prove to be the cause of abortion in a state of gestation.[587] Pliny says the proper remedy for the venom of the _Solipuga_ or _Solpuga_ Ant, and for that of all kinds of Ants, is a bat’s heart.[588] Callicrates used to make Ants, and other such little creatures, out of ivory, with so much skill and ingenuity that other men could not discern the counterfeits from the originals even with the help of glasses.[589] Vespidæ--Wasps, Hornets. Concerning the generation of the Wasp, Topsel and Moufet have the following: “Isidore affirms that Wasps come out of the putrefied carkasses of asses, although he may be mistaken, for all agree that the Scarabees are procreated from them: rather am I of opinion with Pliny, 1. ii. c. 20, and the Greek authors, that they are sprung from the dead bodies of horses, for the horse is a valiant and warlike creature, hence is that verse frequently and commonly used among the Greeks: Wasps come from horses, Bees from bulls are bred.