THE l'i'X^('S-C,ROll'l\'G ANTS. 



3 2 3 



Throughout these masses were numerous ants belonging to the smallest 

 division of the workers, which do not engage in leaf-cutting. Along 

 with them were pupae and larvse, not gathered together, but dispersed, 

 apparently irregularly, throughout the flocculent mass. This mass, 

 which I have called the ant-food, proved, on examination to be com- 

 posed of minutely subdivided pieces of leaves, withered to a brown 

 color, and overgrown and lightly connected together by a minute white 

 fungus that ramified in every direction throughout it. 1 not only 

 found this fungus in every chamber I opened, but also in the chambers 



FIG. 191. Fungus garden of the Mycetosoritis nest shown in Fig. 190 enlarged 

 about !4- (Photograph by C. G. Hartman.) 



of the nest of a distinct species that generally comes out only in the 

 night-time, often entering houses and carrying off various farinaceous 

 substances, and does not make mounds above its nests, but long wind- 

 ing passages, terminating in chambers similar to the common species 

 and always, like them, three parts filled with flocculent masses of 

 fungus-covered vegetable matter, amongst which are the ant-nurses 

 and immature ants. \Yhen a nest is disturbed, and the masses of ant- 

 food spread about, the ants are in great concern to carry away every 

 morsel of it under shelter again ; and sometimes, when I dug into the 

 nest, I found the next day all the earth thrown out filled with little 



