n its numbers. The
following distinctions are the most obvious: the krangga, or great red
ant, about three-fourths of an inch long, bites severely, and usually
leaves its head, as a bee its sting, in the wound; it is found mostly on
trees and bushes, and forms its nest by fastening together, with a
glutinous matter, a collection of the leaves of a branch, as they grow;
the common red ant; the minute red ant; the large black ant, not equal in
size to the krangga, but with a head of disproportioned bulk; the common
black ant; and the minute black ant: they also differ from each other in
a circumstance which I believe has not been attended to; and that is the
sensation with which they affect the taste when put into the mouth, as
frequently happens unintentionally: some are hot and acrid, some bitter,
and some sour. Perhaps this will be attributed to the different kinds of
food they have accidentally devoured; but I never found one which tasted
sweet, though I have caught them in the fact of robbing a sugar or
honey-pot. Each species of ant is a declared enemy of the other, and
never suffers a divided empire. Where one party effects a settlement the
other is expelled; and in general they are powerful in proportion to
their bulk, with the exception of the white-ant, sumut putih (termes),
which is beaten from the field by others of inferior size; and for this
reason it is a common expedient to strew sugar on the floor of a
warehouse in order to allure the formicae to the spot, who do not fail to
combat and overcome the ravaging but unwarlike termites. Of this insect
and its destructive qualities I had intended to give some description,
but the subject is so elaborately treated (though with some degree of
fancy) by Mr. Smeathman, in Volume 71 of the Philosophical Transactions
for 1781, who had an opportunity of observing them in Africa, that I omit
it as superfluous.

Of the wasp kind there are several curious varieties. One of them may be
observed building its nest of moistened clay against a wall, and
inclosing in each of its numerous compartments a living spider; thus
revenging upon this bloodthirsty race the injuries sustained by harmless
flies, and providently securing for its own young a stock of food.

Lalat, the common fly (musca); lalat kuda (tabanus); lalat karbau
(oestrus);

Niamok, agas, the gnat or mosquito (culex), producing a degree of
annoyance equal to the sum of all the other physical plagues of a hot
clim