COLOR IN ANIMALS 



137 



The ants, another group of the Hymenoptera, are hard, 

 gritty little insects, with an acid flavor, and are not esteemed 

 as food by insect-eating birds. Some even have stings, like 

 their relatives the bees and wasps. In the tropics certain 

 species of ants are in the habit of gathering bits of leaves 

 from the trees and taking them to their nests to fertilize 

 their fungus gardens. These leaf-cutting ants are often 

 seen in great abundance, marching in procession from the 

 tree which is being denuded to their nest, each with a piece 

 of o-reen leaf held in 



O 



his jaws and hang- 

 ing back over his 



O 



shoulder. Among 

 some of these leaf- 

 cutting ants in the 



O 



Amazon basin, Mr. 

 naturalist, observed 



an insect belonging - From specimens sent by H. W. Britcher. 



to a different order, a " tree-hopper," one of the Homoptera^ 

 which mimicked the ant with its leaf (Plate 75, B}. Its 

 body was brown below, like the ant, and above was drawn 

 up into a narrow longitudinal ridge, irregular in outline on 

 the upper edge and colored a bright green, giving the whole 

 insect almost the exact appearance of an ant carrying a bit 

 of green leaf. The ants being unpalatable, the bug which 

 imitated them was protected from attack by insect-eating 

 birds. Ants are also mimicked by spielers (Figs. 38 and 39). 

 Many species of edible butterflies imitate the appearance 

 of some of the ill-flavored butterflies. One of the best 

 examples is found throughout the whole of eastern North 



FIG. 38. An ant (j) which in size, spread of legs, glossy 

 black character of abdomen, and in general appearance at a 

 little distance, is imitated by a spider (b) which lives in the 

 same nest. Both are quite small. It is very difficult for one 

 observing them closely to detect the spiders among the ants. 



