A. XT COMMUNITIES 



cutter would .sometimes drop with the excision to the 

 ground; sometimes it let the section fall; sometimes 

 carried it down. At the foot of the tree lay a pile of cut 

 leaves, to which clippings were being added continually 

 by droppings from above. Squads of carriers from 

 the nest took these up and bore them away (Fig. 48). 

 This is the manner of loading the cuttings: They are 

 seized by the curved mandibles; the head is elevated; 

 the piece is thrown back by a quick motion, and lodged 

 on its edge within a deep furrow that runs along the entire 

 median line of the face, except the clypeus, and is sup- 

 ported between prominent spines on the border of this 

 furrow and on the prothorax. These peculiar features 

 of the Attidse thus serve a useful end. As far as noted, 

 the cutting and carrying were not done by the minims or 

 smallest castes, but by the worker-minors; the soldiers 

 rarely engaged therein. As the ants moved along down 

 the branches and trunk of the tree, and over the ground 

 to their gates, holding above their heads the bits of green 

 leaves, which waved to and fro and glanced in the lantern 

 light, the column had a weird seeming. 



The citizens of this commune, and of some others ob- 

 served, made their leaf-cutting sallies in the night. 

 But this is not the universal habit. I afterward saw 

 carriers marching with their loads during the day. I 

 also observed them frequently in day marches in the 

 vicinity of Santiago de Cuba, during the Spanish-Amer- 

 ican war, carrying on their quaint industry among the 

 graves of fallen American soldiers and in the tropical 

 trees that sheltered them. 



They were abundant on the great terraced height of 

 the Morro, or castle, at the mouth of Santiago Bay, 

 which I visited just after the surrender, and before it 



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