AUS DER OCHSENHORNDORNAKAZIE IN MEXIKO. 299 



are bipinnate. At the base of each pair of leaflets, on the 

 mid-rib, is a craterformed gland, which, when the leaves 

 are young, secretes a honey-like liquid. Of this the ants 

 are very fond ; and they are constantly running about from 

 one gland to another to sip up the honey as it is secreted. 

 But this is not all ; there is still a more wonderful provision 

 of more solid food. At the end of each of the small 

 divisions of the compound leaflet there is, when the leaf 

 first unfolds, a little yellow fruitlike body *) united by a 

 point at its base to the end of the pinnule. Examined 

 through a microscope, this little appendage looks like a 

 golden pear. When the leaf first unfolds, the little pears 

 are not quite ripe, and the ants are continually employed 

 going from one to another, examining them. When an 

 ant finds one sufficiently advanced, it bites the small point 

 of attachement ; then, bending down the fruitlike body, it 

 breaks it off and bears it away in triumph to the nest. All 

 the fruitlike bodies do not ripen at once but successively, 

 so that the ants are kept about the young leaf for some 

 time after it unfolds. Thus the young leaf is always guarded 

 by the ants ; and no caterpillar or larger animal could 

 attempt to injure them without being attacked by the little 

 warriors. The fruitlike bodies are about one twelfth of an 

 inch long and are about one third of the size of the ants; 

 so that an ant carrying one away is as heavily laden as a 

 man bearing a large bunch of plantains. I think these facts 

 show that the ants are really kept by the acacia as a standing 

 army, to protect its leaves from the attacks of herbivorous 

 mammals and insects." 



Belt berichtet (p. 221) auch über Versuche, die er mit 

 den Akazien angestellt, um. ihre Beziehungen zu den Ameisen 

 zu prüfen. ,,I sowed the seeds of the Acacia in my garden 

 and reared some young plants. Ants of many kinds were 

 numerous; but none of them took to the thorns for shelter, 

 nor the glands and fruit-like bodies for food ; for, as I have 

 already mentioned, the species that attend on the thorns 



: ) Gemeint sind die eiweisshaltigen Gebilde, welche Schimper i{ 

 als „BELT'sche Körperchen" beschrieben hat. 



