ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE. 23 



regale themselves. This protective care results in rapid increase of 

 these insects, with resultant damage to the plants infested. In 

 florists' establishments the ants sometimes sever the petals of cut 

 flowers in their search for nectar. 



Visits to flowers of various kinds seem a natural habit, and when 

 the ants do not find the nectar readily available they quickly cut 

 their way to it in all cases where the plant tissue is tender enough 

 to permit of it. In their attacks upon orange blossoms they are 

 particularly severe, as they sometimes eat their way into the fruit 

 buds even before the latter are fully open. The workers have also 

 been noticed regularly visiting the extra-floral nectaries of cotton 

 and other plants. 



To truck growers the ants are veiy troublesome, owing to the 

 manner in which they remove certain garden seeds before they have 

 sprouted. Lettuce seed is especially subject to this attack, and in 

 infested districts the rows of lettuce seed are covered with corn meal, 

 which is also attractive to the ants. By the time tho ants have 

 removed the meal the lettuce seeds will have sprouted. The ants 

 also assiduously attend plant lice on a number of vegetables, making 

 the latter unpleasant to handle. Cabbage heads are often found 

 through which plant lice and ants are completely distributed, the 

 cabbage leaves merely serving as divisions between layers of the 

 insects. 



In the sugar-cane fields the ant again comes to the front, owing 

 to its fondness for the excretions of the sugar-cane mealy-bug, 

 Pseudococcus calceolarix. (See figs. 3, 4.) In order to protect 

 these insects from storms and enemies, the ants build protective 

 coverings and shelters over them and attend them constantly. (See 

 fig. 5.) As the result of these attentions the mealy-bugs thrive m 

 numbers and destructiveness to an extent which is impossible where 

 the ants are not present. LuckOy the territory infested by the 

 mealy-bug is as yet very restricted, but this msect threatens to 

 become a serious problem in the future, owmg to the manner in 

 which it destroys the eyes of "seed cane" after it is planted, prevent- 

 ing sprouting and thus injuring the stand. The vacant rows in a 

 field of cane, due to this injury, are shown in figure 3. The control of 

 this mealy-bug therefore resolves itself into the problem of controlling 

 the ant. 



In cornfields it can be easily noticed that aphides are several times 

 as numerous, and are also more generally distributed, in districts 

 mfested by the Argentine ant than m the noninfested districts. The 

 ants are also found m great numbers attending i)lant lice upon cotton 

 plants, and in a cotton field at Baton Rouge, where these ants were 

 veiy numerous, it was noticed that the cotton aphides remamed 



