734 



Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. f\^ol. XXIII,' 



November 3, 1900, I excavated a large nest of Atta texana situated on 

 the left bank of the Colorado River about a mile west of Austin. This 

 nest was in pure sand at the edge of a sorghum field about 15 m. above the 

 river bottom where it Vv'as overgrown with lovr willoAv, pecan and Texas 

 persimmon trees. The ants were busy defoliating the willows and carrying 

 their leafy burdens up the bank and into the nest along a path about SO m. 

 long. At intervals along this path piles of leaf-clippings, dropped by the 

 ants, lay drying in the sun. The leaves were cut by the medife in the manner 

 described by ^Nloeller for the South American Acromijrme.v discigera. The 



Fig. lu. iiariuii .spiiiiK,-., ueui' Aii.stiii, lt-\a.s, ilie classic localitj' for the study of Atta 

 texana. (Pliotograpla by Messrs. Brues and Melander.) 



nest was in a promontory accessible from three sides, one of which formed 

 the wall of a small ravine. The craters Avere very numerous and nearly 

 all on the summit of the bank. The arrangement of the galleries and 

 chambers Avas very similar to that described for the nest on Waller Creek, 

 except that the chambers AA'ere at a loAA'er IcA'el (1.5 to 2.3 m.) beloAV the sur- 

 face and much larger. One of them, of a crescentic form, measured nearly 

 1 m. in length and 30 cm. broad and high. All of the chambers, of AA-hich 

 I examined fully a dozen, AA'cre situated in a damper layer of sand than 



