Cuap. I. SAUBA ANTS. 13 
little ridges and turrets. The difference in colour from the superficial 
soil of the vicinity is owing to their being formed of the undersoil, 
brought up from a considerable depth. It is very rarely that the ants 
are seen at work on these mounds; the entrances seem to be generally 
closed ; only now and then, when some particular work is going on, are 
the galleries opened. The entrances are small and numerous ; in the 
larger hillocks it would require a great amount of excavation to get at 
the main galleries ; but I succeeded in removing portions of the dome 
in smaller hillocks, and then I found that the minor entrances converged, 
at the depth of about two feet, to one broad elaborately-worked gallery or 
mine, which was four or five inches in diameter. 
This habit in the Satiba ant of clipping and carrying away immense 
quantities of leaves has long been recorded in books on natural history. 
When employed on this work, their processions look like a multitude of 
animated leaves on the march. Insome place I found an accumulation 
of such leaves, all circular pieces, about the size of a sixpence, lying on 
the pathway, unattended by ants, and at some distance from any colony. 
Such heaps are always found to be removed when the place is revisited 
the next day. In course of time I had plenty of opportunities of seeing 
them at work. They 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, and as all take the same road to their colony, the path they follow 
becomes in a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression 
of a cartwheel through the herbage. 
It is a most interesting sight to see the vast host of busy diminutive ~ 
labourers occupied on this work. Unfortunately they choose cultivated 
trees for their purpose. ‘This ant is quite peculiar to Tropical America, 
as is the entire genus to which it belongs; it sometimes despoils the 
young trees of species growing wild in its native forests ; but it seems 
to prefer, when within reach, plants imported from other countries, 
such as the coffee and orange trees. It has not hitherto been shown 
satisfactorily to what use it applies the leaves. I discovered it only 
after much time spent in investigation. The leaves are used to thatch 
the domes which cover the entrances to their subterranean dwellings, 
thereby protecting from the deluging rains the young broods in the nests 
beneath. The larger mounds, already described, are so extensive that 
few persons would attempt to remove them for the purpose of examining 
their interior; but smaller hillocks, covering other entrances to the 
same system of tunnels and chambers, may be found in sheltered places, 
and these are always thatched with leaves, mingled with granules of 
earth. The heavily-laden workers, each carrying its segment of leaf 
vertically, the lower edge secured in its mandibles, troop up and cast 
their burthens on the hillock; another relay of labourers place the 
leaves in position, covering them with a layer of earthy granules, which 
are brought one by one from the soil beneath. 
