ANT COMMUNITIES 



other trees. There are two varieties, a red and a yellow, 

 whose nests resemble small cotton bags. These are 

 captured by the Chinese mountaineers by means of pig 

 or goat bladders baited inside with lard. The mouths 

 of the bladders are stretched across the gates of the 

 ant-nests, and as the insects are fond of oils and greasy 

 food, they enter in, are trapped in great numbers, and 

 are sold at the orangeries. They are colonized upon the 

 trees by turning them loose upon the branches. Once 

 established, they begin their work as insecticides by 

 capturing and killing the destructive larvse. To enable 

 them to pass freely from tree to tree, all the trees of an 

 orchard are connected by bamboo rods. 



Whether such a method is practicable in the United 

 States, at least to an extent to justify extensive use, 

 may be doubted. If successful at all, it would prob- 

 ably need the painstaking patience of Chinese men with 

 the Chinese ants. However, a somewhat similar experi- 

 ment has been tried upon a Ponerine ant (Ectatomma 

 tubercMlatum) , popularly known as the "Kelep." This 

 ant was imported into Texas by the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture as an insecticide, with the 

 special purpose of directing its insect-destroying energies 

 against the cotton boll- weevil. It had shown marked 

 tendencies in that direction in its native Guatemala. 

 Apart from the more or less complete success of such 

 experiments, the fact remains, which is here relevant, 

 that it is one of a great army of ants that feed upon 

 living insects. 



That this habit is widely distributed among the native 

 ants of our Southern States was shown in a report made 

 by the author [McC. 9, p. 182] a number of years ago 

 to the then entomologist of the Department of Agri- 



114 



