532 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1. 



MUSHROOMS. 



AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT CONCERNING THEM, 

 TRANSLATED BY BALDENSPERGER. 



Mr. Root:— On page 314, April 15, Mr. Grain- 

 ger and you discuss mushroom culture ; and 

 right here it would interest you, and probably 

 many friends interested in that industry, or in 

 gardening, to read that ants have been discov- 

 ered that really grow mushrooms. I find in a 

 German newspaper the following, which I trans- 

 late. It is headed — 



ANTS AS MUSHROOM-GROWERS. 



Many naturalists, who have traveled through 

 tropical South America, have recorded the cu- 

 rious habits of leaf-cutter ants, or carrier-ants. 

 These little creatures attack by myriads trees 

 and bushes, and cut with their mandibles round 

 pieces of the leaves, and may be seen in long 

 files, carrying these bits toward their nests, 

 passing, by self-made paths, leaves, branches, 

 and sometimes even passingovernatural bridges 

 to cross the water. Till recently it was not 

 known what the ants did with these morsels of 

 leaves, some of them weighing nine or ten times 

 as much as the bearer. Some believed that they 

 used them as food directly. Some naturalists 

 believed they were used in lining their under- 

 ground nests; but against this last supposition 

 facts spoke, for the leaves were never found in 

 the nests, no matter what quantity they car- 

 ried home. Thomas Belt conjectured, in his 

 famous book, " The Naturalist in Nicaragua," 

 that those leaves were used as manure in the 

 cultivation of a small mushroom on which they 

 live ; consequently these ants are mushroom- 

 growers. Belt was a very keen observer, but 

 his conjectures met with many doubts, and he 

 himself calls them "extraordinary and unex- 

 pected." A German, Dr. Alfred Moller. sent to 

 Brazil by the B<rlin Academy, to study mush- 

 rooms, finally solved the difficulty. In the 6th 

 number of Prof. Schimper's Botanical Commu- 

 nications from the Tropics it appears that Mr. 

 Belt's conjectures were altogether true. The 

 results of these observations are as follows: 



The nests of the training-ants (Atta) are 

 mostly built in natural hollows under the sur- 

 face of the ground, which are probably enlarged 

 by the ants. If such hollows are not covered 

 by old logs or stones, the ants cover them with 

 a thick pile of leaves and bits of branches. At- 

 ta coronntn hollows out its lodgings in hard 

 clay soil, while Atta hystris and Attn coronata 

 prefer to live in forests. A third kind, Atta dis- 

 cigera. prefers the neighborhood of man. Thus. 

 Dr. Moller found a nest beneath the stone stairs 

 of the house which he occupied, near his re- 

 nowned old uncle. Dr. Fr. Miiller, in Blumenau 

 (station Catarina), and found it was impossible 

 to dislodge the ants without breaking up the 

 stairs. But in whatever position they have 

 their nests, in all of them is found a loose, soft, 

 gray mass, like a big sponge, with different- 

 sized excavations, in which ants are always 

 found, as well as eggs, larvte, and pupa?, strewn 

 about. Moller calls this mass the mushroom- 

 garden — the term used by the American natu- 

 ralist McCook. This substance is composed of 

 many small plots of yellowish-brown to black 

 in color, held together, as observed under the 

 microscope, by white fungus threads; also, by 

 the microscope, the particles of the leaves are 

 seen in these plots. On the surface of this 

 mushroom-garden can he seen numerous white 

 points, which, seen under the microscope, are 

 recognized as many fungus-thread ends coupled- 

 together. Moller calls these points " kohlrabi 

 heaplets" (kohlrabihiiufchen). and says they 

 are the principal or only food of the ants. They 



are very careful about their mushroom-gardens; 

 and if a piece of it is taken out by ants, larvte, 

 or pupse, and put beside the nest, the ants im- 

 mediately carry back their brood and pick up 

 every particle of the garden which may have 

 fallen olf in taking it out. Moller also confirms 

 Belt's account, that the ants take with them 

 every bit when changing iheir domiciles. 



In order to observe their ways, Moller kept 

 these ants in confinement. He found that they 

 died of hunger, without their garden, after 

 eight to fourteen days, even if they have such 

 leaves as they seem to prefer; but if a piece of 

 their garden is brought with them, and put un- 

 der a glass cover, they first begin repairing the 

 garden, and carry away every bit of unclean- 

 ness from it. 



In less than 12 hours the work is done, and 

 from time to time the ants carry out such parti- 

 cles as are sucked up by the mushrooms, and 

 produce no more; and if there is no new stuff 

 the garden withers by degrees, and the ants die 

 after eight to fourteen days. INIoller could well 

 observe how lavishly the ants devoured their 

 vegetables. The ant seizes such a"heaplet" 

 in its jaws and plucks it out: then turns it 

 round and round by the help of its fore feet, 

 while the antenna? continually touch the food. 

 The ant sucks, sips, and pulls the kohlrabi till 

 all gradually disappears in its mouth. 



To form the above-named pellets, the ant 

 cuts a morsel of leaf, and chews and kneads 

 with jaws and feet till a small white ball Is 

 formed, which is then adapted to somi^ place in 

 the building. Moller found that particles of 

 leaves built in in the morning were already 

 drawn through by fungus threads in the after- 

 noon of the same day. It is very remarkable 

 that no other mushrooms grow in those nests. 

 In bringing in the leaves, all kinds of fungus 

 threads must be imported, especially the com- 

 mon mold form, where they can thrive best. 

 But he never found any but that one kind, of 

 kohlrabi heaplets, which he took and cultivat- 

 ed apart. He got only pure kinds, and no bac- 

 teria appeared. This wonderful cleanliness Is 

 attributable only to continual feeding. Such a 

 garden, rid of ants, is soon covered with fungus 

 threads; 24 hours after beginning, these fungus 

 threads grow up in the kohlrabi heaplets, which 

 soon lose the protoplasm they contain, and 

 wither. The ants have, therefore, the greatest 

 interest in preventing those air-threads ; and 

 this is another work which falls to the task of 

 those little creatures. If only a few ants are 

 left on such a garden, it may be observed with 

 what efforts they keep back the air- threads 

 coming up. If too few ants, some air-threads 

 gain footing here and there, and by and by the 

 ants are obliged to retreat before the ever ad- 

 vancing fungus forest, which advances with 

 such rapidity that the poor haunted ants, not- 

 withstanding their untiring efforts to keep it 

 down, are obliged to flee from their own work. 



The close study of this mushroom, where sev- 

 eral neuter forms {Conidia') appear, showed 

 that all nests of the Atta species contained the 

 same. It is a leaf-fungus, seldom showing the 

 caplike body into which the higher kinds devel- 

 op, and have been termed, provisionally, by the 

 discoverer, Rozites gongylophora. 



Besides the leaf-cutter ants, Moller says oth- 

 er ants also make gardens — the hair-ants (Ap- 

 terostkjma) and the hunchback-ants {Cypho- 

 myrtmr) for example. These ants do not take 

 leaves for their use, but decayed wood. Each 

 kind of fungus differs from that of the leaf- 

 cutter ants, and are not accepted by them as 

 food. [Signed] J. MoiWES. 



The caplike body is botanically termed the 

 " pileus." Ph. J. Baldensperger. 



Nice, France. 



