A Man's Battle with Ants

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 76, 5 December 1885, Page 3

A Man's Battle with Ants

Mr Isaac Burncrat, a farmer living near Chambersburg, a small village a few miles from here, had a most wonderful experience recently, narrowly escaping being killed by ants. He was picking blackberries in a wild patch of undergrowth in a dense wood, when suddenly he disturbed millions upon millions of large black ants. They were under a thin covering of earth which he stepped on, and almost instantly they crawled up his trouaer legs, and, when he tried to knock them off, they showed fight. Before he could get out of the heavy growth of bush he was covered from head to foot with the pestiferous insects. They bit him, and crawled- into his nose, ears, and mouth. He yeiied for help, but soon became blinded with the myriads of ants on his head and face, and before he reached the edge of the bush fell helpless to the ground, utterly at the mercy of the insects, and was only saved from death by the timely arrival of a brother. The insects were common black ants of a very large size. Burncrat was bitten by them all over the body, but while very sore, it is thought, providing the bites are not poisonous, will recover. The case is without a precedent in this section of the country, and it is believed, had not aid arrived when it. the ants would have not only killed, but eaten their victim. — Dayton Dispatch.