1907.] Wheeler, Fungii!<-yroicing Ants of North America. 733 



April 10, 1900, ^lessrs. A. L. Melander and C. T. Brues assisted me in 

 excavating a moderately large nest situated at the base of a juniper on the 

 banks of Waller Creek, at Austin. There Avere at least twenty craters on 

 the summit of the flat mound, which was about 5 m. across. These entrances 

 measuring 2.5-4 cm. in diameter, were found to lead downward as tubular 

 galleries converging towards and uniting with one another more and more, 

 till a depth of about a meter was reached. Here each of the galleries, now 

 greatly reduced in number, entered the top of. a large chamber with vaulted 

 roof and level floor. Some of these chambers were fully 30 cm. in diameter 

 and 25 cm. high and as broad as long, others were much elongated. They 

 were sometimes connected with one another by means of broad galleries, 

 especially when lying at different levels. The rootlets of the juniper ran 

 through some of the chambers or hung down freely into their cavities. Each 

 chamber had a large placenta-like gray or Avhite fungus garden covering 

 the greater portion of its floor. Small gardens of a more nodular form also 

 hung suspended, enveloping the juniper roots, which seemed to have been 

 left untouched by the ants, during their excavations, for this very purpose. 

 Each garden was a comb-like or sponge-like mass of triturated leaves and 

 juniper berries, permeated and covered with a mould-like mycelium. This 

 mass exhaled a rather pleasant odor not unlike that of stale honey, and 

 crumbled so readily under the touch that it was impossible to remove it 

 entire. It swarmed with workers, the soldiers being least, the mimims most 

 numerous, whereas the mediae were intermediate in numbers as well as in 

 size. In one of the gardens we found the aged mother queen of the colony, 

 three winged males, and a number of larvse. Several of the disintegrated 

 gardens together with many of the ants were carried to the laboratory antl 

 placed in large glass jars. By the following morning the insects had com- 

 pletely rebuilt their gardens. The coarser work of carrj'ing and building 

 up the particles of leaf-pulp fell to the lot of the mediae, while the minims 

 vrent about planting and pruning the tufts of fungus hj-phje. The huge 

 soldiers merely stalked about on the surface of the gardens, often breaking 

 down under their weight the walls of the delicate comb. The ants were 

 confined in the jars for several days, and after the expiration of a week 1 

 made an observation that did not impress me as imj^ortant at the time: 

 the gardens, which were in a much less flourishing condition than when first 

 installed in the jars, were seen to be covered with droplets of a brown liquid. 

 As these droplets closely resembled those since described by J. Huber 

 (vide ante, p. G98) as the excrement of the female Attn sexdens, it is probable 

 that the soldiers and mediae, unable to add fresh leaves to their rapiilly 

 deteriorating gardens, resorted to the very same method of manuring the 

 mycelium as that employed by the queen Alia while she is founding her 

 colonv. 



