58 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
forests, their ceaseless pertinacity in the spoliation of the 
trees—more particularly of introduced species—which are_ 
stripped bare and ragged with the midribs and a few jagged 
points of the leaves only left. Many a young plantation of 
orange, mango, and lemon trees has been destroyed by them. 
Again and again have I been told in Nicaragua, when in- 
quiring why no fruit-trees were grown at particular places, 
“Tt is no use planting them; the ants eat them up.” The 
first acquaintance a stranger generally makes with them is 
on encountering their paths on the outskirts of the forest 
crowded with the ants; one lot carrying off the pieces of 
leaves, each piece about the size of a sixpence, and held up 
vertically between the jaws of the ant; another lot hurrying 
along in an opposite direction empty-handed, but eager to 
get loaded with their leafy burdens. If he follows this last 
division, it will lead him to some young trees or shrubs, up 
which the ants mount; and then each one, stationing itself 
on the edge of a leaf, commences to make a circular cut, with 
its scissor-like jaws, from the edge, its hinder feet being the 
centre on which it turns. When the piece is nearly cut off, 
it is still stationed upon it, and it looks as though it would 
fall to the ground with it; but, on being finally detached, the 
ant is generally found to have hold of the leaf with one foot, 
and soon righting itself, and arranging its burden to its 
satisfaction, it sets off at once on its return. Following it 
again, it is seen to join a throng of others, each laden like 
itself, and, without a moment’s delay, it hurries along the 
well-worn path. As it proceeds, other paths, each thronged 
with busy workers, come in from the sides, until the main 
road often gets to be seven or eight inches broad, and more 
thronged than the streets of the city of London. 
After travelling for some hundreds of yards, often for more 
than half a mile, the formicarium is reached. It consists of 
low, wide mounds of brown, clayey-looking earth, above and 
immediately around which the bushes have been killed by 
their buds and leaves having been persistently bitten off as 
they attempted to grow after their first defoliation. Under 
high trees in the thick forest the ants do not make their 
nests, because, I believe, the ventilation of their underground 
galleries, about which they are very particular, would be 
interfered with, and perhaps to avoid the drip from the 
