GEOLOGIC WORK OF ANTS BRANNER. 311 



ANTS AS FOOD. 



In the Amazon region some of the ants are even used by the Indians 

 for food. 



The head and thorax are the parts eaten, the abdomen being nipped off (at San 

 Carlos I constantly see them eaten entire), and it is eaten uncooked. The taste to me 

 is strong, fiery, and disagreeable, but those who have eaten the bachaco fried in turtle 

 oil tell me it is quite palatable. 1 



Orton 2 sa}^s the saubas i ' are eaten by the Rio Negro Indians, and 

 esteemed a luxury, while the Tapajos Tribes use them to season their 

 mandioca sauce." 



In the more thickly settled parts of Brazil the custom of eating these 

 ants is either not practiced nowadays, or, if it is, it is not generally 

 known. In the early history of the country, however, when the native 

 Indians were much more abundant than they are now, the custom 

 appears to have been common. 



STRUCTURES ABOVE GROUND. 



Origin of the structures. — The word ''nests" frequently applied to 

 the superficial structures of ants should not be understood to mean 

 nests in the ordinary signification of the word. These structures 

 sometimes contain the queens, eggs, and larvae, but at other times 

 these are kept in excavations below the surface. 



The mounds made by the true ants all begin as small funnel-shaped 

 ridges around the excavations started by individual females. The 

 large mounds are the results of the work of many generations and of a 

 vast number of individuals. 



Without going into any detailed description of the habits of the 

 ants, it is worth while to give, for those unfamiliar with their habits, a 

 general idea of the methods followed by these ants in establishing new 

 colonies and in increasing them. When the swarming or mating sea- 

 son of the sauba ant comes, the young females leave their homes and 

 fly away. They seem to fly about very much at random — at least, I 

 have rarely seen them going in any particular direction — and when 

 they have been seen going together it was apparently due to the direc- 

 tion of the wind or the position of the sun at the time, rather than to 

 any definite purpose on their part. 



When the female alights after a flight of only a few minutes, she 

 breaks off her wings and at once falls to work at excavating a burrow. 

 All kinds of places are selected for these burrows. It does not appear 

 that the selection is deliberate, but it seems to be determined by the 

 accident of alighting from an aimless flight. Judging from the large 

 number of individual females I have frequently seen in the air and on 



i Richard Spruce: Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and Andes, vol. 1, p. 484. London, 1908. 

 * James Orton: The Andes and the Amazon, 3d ed., p. 301. New York, 1876. 



