ANT ACACIAS AND ACACIA ANTS — SAFFORD. 387 



certain other forms of nutriment stores in the vegetable kingdom 

 and adds: 



It appears that the crater gland and the food bodies together supply nutri- 

 ment sufficient to support the ants ; it is evident that the latter must be consid- 

 ered in the light of protein stores as well as of stores of carbohydrates. We 

 may compare them analogically with the endosperm of seeds, in which these 

 substances are also stored. 7 



SCHIMPER ON MYRMECOPHILY. 



Schimper, in his Pflanzen-Geographia, gives an interesting resume 

 of Belt's observations in a chapter entitled Pflanzen und Ameisen, 

 accompanied by an illustration of the thorns, leaves, and apical 



Fig. 3. — Cross section of nectar gland and petiole of Avacia 

 cornigera L. made by B. J. Howard from a specimen growing 

 in green-house at Washington. X 24. Original. 



bodies of a bull-horn acacia. Under the heading Myrmecophily he 

 gives credit to Belt as the actual discoverer of this relationship be- 

 tween the ants and their hosts, calling attention, however, to the fact 

 that the same theory was advanced by Delpino almost simultaneously 

 and quite independently. He refers the plant used by Belt in his 

 observations to Acacia cornigera, and also cites A. sphaerocephala 

 as a closely allied plant which has been the subject of subsequent 

 investigations. "Both of these acacias and, in addition to them, 

 several other species, possess great, hollow, relatively thin-walled 

 stipular thorns, which serve as dwellings for a certain species of 

 virulent ant, which bores an entrance opening into them near the 

 tip." Referring to the apical bodies on the leaflets, he continues : 



These food bodies, named after their discoverer Belt'sche Korperchen, may 

 be regarded from a morphological view as transformed glands. They are, 



7 See Francis Darwin " On the glandular bodies on Acacia sphaerocephala and Cecropia 

 peltata serving as food for ants." Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. 15 : 398-409. 1877. 



