40 MEMOIR OF 



on the left. When they cannot obtain ants, they 

 carry off even small birds from their nests, and suck 

 the blood from their bodies. They occasionally 

 change their skin, in the same manner as cater- 

 pillars ; but I hare never found them flying. These 

 spiders seize upon humming-birds when sitting in 

 their nests. This bird was formerly used by the 

 priests of Surinam as an article of food, and I am 

 assured that they were prohibited from eating any 

 other kind of food. 



fcC Ants of a large size are found in America, 

 which in a single night sometimes strip trees of 

 their foliage so completely as to make them re- 

 semble stakes rather than trees. They are armed with 

 two curved teeth which cut across each other like 

 the blades of a pair of scissors, by means of which 

 they cut off the leaves, which fall to the ground, 

 leaving the branches as naked as winter makes 

 them in Europe. Thousands of ants are waiting at 

 the bottom to receive these leaves as they fall, and 

 they immediately carry them to their nests, not as 

 food for themselves but for their young, which are 

 as yet only small worms ; for it is to be observed, 

 that the winged ants lay eggs in the same manner 

 as flies, from which are produced small worms or 

 acari of two different kinds, some of them enclosing 

 themselves in a web, but the greater number passing 

 into nymphs. These nymphs some, who are igno- 

 rant of the matter, call eggs, but the eggs are much 

 smaller. The nymphs are employed at Surinam 

 for feeding chickens, and they form a more nourish- 



