THE FUNGUS-GROWING ANTS. 



3 2 9 



cm. in diameter, in the rotten wood and exhibit a peculiar structure not 

 seen in other Attii. ' The garden is often completely, or at least nearly 

 always in great part, enclosed in a white cohweb-like membrane. It 

 was often possible to obtain a view of uninjured nests of A. pilosum 

 that had been excavated in clefts of the rotten wood. In such cases 

 the envelope enclosed the whole fungus gar- 

 den like a bag, with only a single orifice or 

 entrance. The envelope is attached in a 

 pendent position to the surrounding wood, 

 roots or particles of earth by means of 

 radiating fibers, and this explains why the 

 gardens are so easily torn asunder while the 

 nest is being uncovered." Even in cap- 

 tivity these ants persisted in hanging their 

 gardens to the sides of the glass dishes in 

 which they were kept. 



The two species of Cyphomyrmex ob- 

 served by Moeller were found nesting under 

 bark or in rotten wood like Apterostigma. 

 The largest gardens of C. strigatus are only 

 8 cm. long, whereas those of C. auritus may 

 attain a length of 15 cm. and a breadth and 

 height of 5 cm. These gardens are never 

 pendent and never enclosed in a mycelial 

 envelope. In other respects they resemble 

 those of Apterostigma and are grown on the 

 same substrata. 



Moeller's studies were confined to the adult colonies of the Attii. 

 The question as to how these ants came by their fungi in the first place, 

 was subsequently answered by the researches of Sampaio (1894), von 

 Ihering (1898), Goeldi (19050 and b') and Huber (1905, 1907, 1908). 

 Sampaio found fungus gardens in very young formicaries of the 

 Brazilian Atta sexdens, and von Ihering showed that the virgin 

 female of this species, on leaving the nest for her marriage flight, 

 carries in her infrabuccal pocket a pellet of hyphse taken from the 

 fungus garden of the maternal formicary. This pellet is the unex- 

 pelled refuse of her last meal. After fecundation she digs a cavity in 

 the soil, closes its opening to the outside world and sets to work to 

 found a colony. She spits out the pellet of hyphse and cultivates it, 

 while she is at the same time laying eggs and rearing the larvae. Von 

 Ihering and Goeldi maintain that she crushes some of her eggs and uses 

 them as a substratum for the incipient fungus garden. J. Huber 



FIG. 197. Worker of 

 Mcelleriits versicolor of 

 Mexico. Texas and Arizona. 



(Original.) 



