INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS Boy, 
Ow 
Mexico, New Mexico and southern Colorado. In this species 
some of the workers hang sluggishly from the roof of their 
little dome-like chamber, several inches underground, and act 
as permanent receptacles for the so-called honey, which is a 
transparent sugary exudation from certain oak-galls ; it is gath- 
ered at night by the foraging workers and regurgitated to the 
Se eG. 
s i “ i f 
ate Seiad ¢ 
r re Se” 
Honey ants, Myrmecocystus melliger, clinging to the roof of their chamber. .About 
natural size.—After McCook. 
mouths of the “ honey-bearers,’ whose crops at length become 
distended with honey to such an extent that the insects (Tig. 
282) look like so many little translucent grapes or good-sized 
currants. This stored food is in all probability drawn upon 
by the other ants when necessary. . 
Leaf-cutting Ants.—The most dangerous foes to vegeta- 
tion in tropical America are the several species of Atta (C£co- 
doma, Fig. 283, 4). Living in enormous colonies and capable 
of stripping a tree of its leaves in a few hours, these formida- 
ble ants are the despair of the planter; where they are abun- 
dant it becomes impossible to grow the orange, coffee, mango 
and many other plants. These ants dig an extensive under- 
ground nest, piling the excavated earth into a mound, some- 
28) 
