ANT COMMUNITIES 



of other orders, and spin themselves within their tough 

 pupa cases or cocoons. Thus we are quite prepared to 

 learn of Professor Forel's Ceylon species (Polyrachis 

 jerdonii), which builds upon leaves a small nest com- 

 posed of pebbles and minute fragments of plants, 

 cemented together by a fine web, or woven together to 

 form a web-like wall of bright grayish brown. In the 

 East Indian ant Polyrachis dives the nest wall is a pure 

 silken web of a brownish yellow, by which the enclosing 

 leaves are lined and bound together. 



Polyrachis spinigera, of Poonah, India, makes for its 

 nest a fine brown silk web pliable as the finest gauze, but 

 thicker. This is fixed on the ground, where it forms the 

 lining of a funnel-shaped cave that widens out into a 

 chamber. 



But among the woven ant -nests thus far made 

 known the one that seems to show the highest type 

 of nidification is that of Mcophylla smaragdina, a com- 

 mon ant of tropical Asia and Africa. The workers are 

 large, long, reddish to greenish in color, of a war-like 

 and fiery temper. Their females are grass-green, their 

 males black (a rather striking color combination), and 

 they maintain populous communes among the branches 

 of trees. The common habitation is formed by joining 

 together the borders of leaves with white spinning-work 

 and binding them into a large mass, something after the 

 fashion of certain spiders and tent-caterpillars. 



According to Mr. Aitken [Ai. 1, p. 422], the method of 

 construction is as follows: A worker stands at the point 

 where two adjoining leaves diverge, and holding to one 

 with its claws, seizes the other with its jaws and draws 

 the two together. As the leaves gradually approach each 



other they are held in place by the outspun threads, 



34 



