338 
ENTOMOLOGY 
times thirty or forty feet in diameter, and making paths in 
various directions from the nest for access to the plants of the 
A 
v} 
leaf-cutting ant, Atta cephalotes. 
Eciton omnivorum. 
B, wandering ant, 
Eciton drepanophorum; C, 
Natural size.—After SHIPLEY. 
vicinity ; Belt often found these ants at work half a mile from 
their nest; they attack flowers, fruits and seeds, but chiefly 
Fic. 284. 
A 
A, B, cuts made in Cuphea 
leaves in four or five minutes by 
Atta discigera; natural size. C, 
Atta discigera transporting severed 
fragments of leaves; 
After MOLLER. 
reduced.— 
Each 
four or five 
leaves. ant, by laboring 
minutes, bites out a 
more or less circular fragment of 
a leaf (Fig. 284) and carries it 
home, or else drops it for another 
worker to carry; and two strings 
of ants may be seen, one carry- 
ing their leafy burdens toward the 
nest, the other returning for more 
plunder. 
The use made of these leaves 
has been the subject of much dis- 
Belt found the true ex- 
planation, but it for 
Moller to investigate the subject 
so thoroughly as to leave no room 
for doubt. 
gus upon these leaves and use it 
cussion. 
remained 
The ants grow a fun- 
as food. The bits of leaves are 
kneaded into a pulpy, spongy 
mass, upon which the fungus at 
length appears. The food for 
