ANT-NESTS. 219 



a long row of them lined up along the slit and in half an hour they had 

 again brought the edges pretty close together. 



" I was about to despair of seeing the important part of the per- 

 formance, when several workers emerged from the interior of the 

 nest, each with a larva in its mandibles. And they did not run away 

 with the larvse in order to deposit them in a place of safety, but came 

 right up to the exposed opening of the slit. There they were to be 

 seen climbing about behind the row of workers making very odd 

 motions with their heads. With their mandibles they held their larvse 

 so tightly that the bodies of the latter appeared to be compressed in 

 the middle. Perhaps this pressure is necessary in order to excite the 

 function of the spinning glands. It was a strange sight to see them 

 passing between the ranks of the workers that were holding the leaves. 

 While the latter remained on the outside, the former carried on their 



FIG. 123. (Ecopltyl/a smaragdina worker using a larva as a shuttle in weaving 

 the silken tissue of the nest. (Doflein.) 



work within the nest. This made it more difficult to observe what was 

 going on. But after some time I could see very clearly that the larvse 

 were carried with their anterior ends directed forward and upward 

 (Fig. 1-3) and were kept moving from one side to the other of the 

 rent. At the same time each worker waited an instant on one side of 

 the rent, as if it were gluing fast the thread spun by the larva by press- 

 ing its head against the leaf, before the head of the larva was carried 

 across the rent and the same process repeated on the other side. Gradu- 

 ally, while they tirelessly pursued their task, the rent was seen to be 

 filled out with a fine, silken web. 



There could be no doubt that the ants were actually using their 

 larvae both as spools and shuttles. . As several workers toiled close 

 together, they were able to cross and re-cross the threads and thus pro- 

 duce a rather tenacious tissue. This could be cut with the scissors and 

 the small pieces presented a singular appearance under the microscope. 



