The species I here allude to is a very small ant, which the Singhalese call by the generic name of Koombiya.  There is a species still more minute, and evidently distinct, which frequents the caraffes and toilet vessels.  A third, probably the Formica nidificans of Jerdan, is black, of the same size as that last mentioned, and, from its colour, called the Kalu koombiga by the natives.  In the houses its propensities and habits are the same as those of the others; but I have observed that it frequents the trees more profusely, forming small paper cells for its young, like miniature wasps’ nests, in which it deposits its eggs, suspending them from a twig.

The most formidable of all is the great red ant or Dimiya.[1] It is particularly abundant in gardens, and on fruit trees; it constructs its dwellings by glueing the leaves of such species as are suitable from their shape and pliancy into hollow balls, and these it lines with a kind of transparent paper, like that manufactured by the wasp.  I have watched them at the interesting operation of forming these dwellings;—­a line of ants standing on the edge of one leaf bring another into contact with it, and hold both together with their mandibles till their companions within attach them firmly by means of their adhesive paper, the assistants outside moving along as the work proceeds.  If it be necessary to draw closer a leaf too distant to be laid hold of by the immediate workers, they form a chain by depending one from the other till the object is reached, when it is at length brought into contact, and made fast by cement.

[Footnote 1:  Formica smaragdina, Fab.]

Like all their race, these ants are in perpetual motion, forming lines on the ground along which they pass, in continual procession to and from the trees on which they reside.  They are the most irritable of the whole order in Ceylon, biting with such intense ferocity as to render it difficult for the unclad natives to collect the fruit from the mango trees, which the red ants especially frequent.  They drop from the branches upon travellers in the jungle, attacking them with venom and fury, and inflicting intolerable pain both upon animals and man.  On examining the structure of the head through a microscope, I found that the mandibles, instead of merely meeting in contact, are so hooked as to cross each other at the points, whilst the inner line is sharply serrated throughout its entire length; thus occasioning the intense pain of their bite, as compared with that of the ordinary ant.

To check the ravages of the coffee bug[1] (Lecanium coffeae, Walker), which for some years past has devastated some of the plantations in Ceylon, the experiment was made of introducing the red ants, who feed greedily on the Coccus.  But the remedy threatened to be attended with some inconvenience, for the Malabar Coolies, with bare and oiled skins, were so frequently and fiercely assaulted by the ants as to endanger their stay on the estates.