Among the innumerable insects of Africa--the fatal tsetse fly and the devastating locust have already been mentioned--the most interesting, perhaps, is the ant. It exists in great variety and prodigious numbers. There are countless ant-hills in different parts of Africa, which are larger than a majority of the individual homes of the natives of the southern and central portions of the continent. Human works, to be of the same relative size as these homes of insects would tower five or six times above the pyramids of Egypt, and would require a base correspondingly large. Among themselves in Africa some of the species are warriors and cannibals; they fight their enemies and eat the vanquished. Other species are exceedingly destructive of the timbers of houses, eating out the insides and leaving useless shells. Others consume vast quantities of decaying animal matter, and still others the decaying vegetation, including great trees, of the tropics. Many are exceedingly fierce in nature. Among these is the bashikouay ant of equatorial Africa. It is, perhaps, relatively the most voracious of all living things, and the most destructive. Unlike other large-sized ants it does not build houses, but excavates holes in the earth for place of retreat during storms. Its nature and habits are fully described by Du Chaillu: “This ant is very abundant in the whole region I have travelled over in Africa. It is the dread of all living animals from the leopard to the smallest insect. It is their habit to march through the forests in a long regular line--a line about two inches broad and often several miles in length. All along this line are larger ants, who act as officers, stand outside the ranks, and keep this singular army in order. If they come to a place where there are no trees to shelter them from the sun, whose heat they can not bear, they immediately build underground tunnels, through which the whole army passes in columns to the forest beyond. These tunnels are four or five feet underground, and are used only in the heat of the day or during a storm. [Illustration: INSECT LIFE IN AFRICA.] “When they get hungry the long file spreads itself through the forest in a front line, and attacks and devours all it comes to with a fury which is quite irresistible. The elephant and gorilla fly before this attack. The black men run for their lives. Every animal that lives in their line of march is chased. They seem to understand and act upon the tactics of Napoleon, and concentrate, with great speed, their heaviest forces upon the point of attack. In an incredibly short space of time the mouse, or dog, or leopard, or deer is overwhelmed, killed, eaten, and the bare skeleton only remains.