4 Stopes & Hewitt, Tent-building Habits of the Ant. 



The cause of the curling and dwarfing of the leaves 

 does not seem to be an effect of the aphides, or at any 

 rate of the aphides alone, but appears to be the result of 

 direct manipulation by the ants. Several plants of the 

 same species in the neighbourhood bore twigs with ants 

 on the backs of leaves which were beginning to curl, but 

 which seemed entirely free from aphides. 



Prof W. M. Wheeler in a letter to one of us (C. G. H.) 

 says that this species and its varieties in America are in 

 the habit of building tents over plant lice and mealy-bugs, 

 and in his interesting paper (1906) on the habits of the 

 tent-building ant Crematogaster lineolata Say, he refers to 

 the same habit of L. niger. The common American form 

 L. niger var. americana occasionally builds detritus tents 

 around the stems of plants. 



Huber describes the tent-building habit of L. niger in 

 his classic work (1810). Small spherical tents were found 

 on the spurge, and, as in the case of the tents of the 

 Japanese ants, the stem of the spurge formed the axis of 

 the structure. The latter was of the carton type, being 

 constructed of wood. In these shelters the ants kept the 

 plant-lice, which were thus protected from their enemies 

 and also from the rain and sun. 



Forel (1874) has also described the tents which several 

 European species of Lasins construct. One form, L. 

 brunneus, constructs galleries made of detritus over large 

 bark aphides. Some species of Myrviica cover the 

 aphides with earthen cells which communicate with the 

 nest by means of covered galleries. 



There is no doubt that this habit of building detritus 

 and carton tents has developed for no other purpose than 

 that of protecting the various species of aphides which 

 are kept by the ants for the sake of their honey-like 

 secretions. By the construction of such " cowsheds," as 



