ANT-NESTS. 



217 



woven together, and form a rather soft, tough web-like nest wall of a 

 greyish-brown color. . . . We see here unmistakable small fragments 

 of plants bound together in a web by peculiar silk threads. These silk 

 threads are found, upon clu>e examination, to be of very irregular 

 thickness, often branching, and in many cases issuing from a thicker 

 crosspiece. . . . Polyrhachis dit-es, however, no longer needs any for- 

 eign materials. It makes its nest wall out of pure silk web, exactly like 

 coarse spun yarn or the web of a caterpillar. The web is of a brown- 

 ish-yellow color and is fixed between leaves, which are lined with it and 

 are bound together. Mr. Wroughton, of Poonah, India, sent me such a 

 nest, simply between two leaves. A still finer, softer silk web, finer and 

 thicker than the finest silk paper, very soft and as pliable as the finest 

 gauze, though much thicker, of a brown color, is produced by Poly- 

 rhachis spinigcra Mayr. . . . Here we find no more crosspieces but only 

 silk webs. They are, however, still irregular, of varying thickness, spun 



FIG. 122. Brigade of CEcophylla siuaragdina workers drawing edges of leaves 

 together while other workers bind them together with the silk spun by the larvse. 

 (Doflein.) 



across each other into a web. This web is fixed in a wonderful manner 

 in the ground, where it forms the lining of a funnel-shaped cave which 

 is widened out into a chamber at the bottom. . . . The large nest con- 

 structed in the foliage of trees, between the leaves by (Ecophylla 

 sniaragdina Fabr., one of the most common ants of tropical Africa, 

 forms, however, the prototype of spun ant-nests. A great number of 

 leaves are fastened together by a fine white web, like the finest silk 

 stuff. This web, apart from the color, has exactly the same appearance, 

 both to the naked eye and under the microscope, as that of Pol \rhac Ins 

 spinigera. The leaves are usually fastened together by the edges. The 

 nest is larger, and the large, long, very vicious, reddish or greenish 

 worker ants live in it, with their grass-green females, their black males, 

 and the whole brood. They form very populous colonies in the 



