ECONOMY OF LABOUR. 237 



s'accomplit sous mes yeux, et I'arbre resta entierement 

 depouille.' 



Bates ' gives an apparently similar, but really \'ery 

 different account. ' The Saiiba ants,' he says, ' mount 

 the tree in multitudes, the individuals being all 

 worker-minors. Each one places itself on the surface 

 of a leaf, and cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws a 

 nearly semicircular incision on the upper side ; it then 

 takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk 

 detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to 

 the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried 

 off by another relay of workers ; but, generally, each 

 marches off with the piece it has operated upon.' 



Dr. Kerner recounts'-^ the following story communi- 

 cated to him by Dr. Gredler of Botzen : — 



' One of his colleagues at Innsbriick, says that 

 gentleman, had for months been in the habit of sprink- 

 ling pounded sugar on the sill of his window, for a 

 train of ants, which passed in constant procession from 

 the garden to the window. One day, he took it into 

 his head to put the pounded sugar into a vessel, 

 which he fastened with a string to the transom of the 

 window; and, in order that his long-petted insects 

 might have information of the supply suspended above, 

 a number of the same set of ants were placed with the 

 sugar in the vessel. These busy creatures forthwith 



' Naturalist on the Amaznns, vol. i. p. 2(;. 



- Flowers and their Vnhlddoi Gtirsfs, Dr. A. Kerner. Traii.s. by 

 W. Ogle, 1878, p. 21. 



