406 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



of the Andes. Their case is parallel to that of 

 the lake-dwellers of the mouth of the Orinoco 

 and the inundated savannas of Guayaquil, whose 

 descendants must needs elevate their houses on 

 stages six feet or more in height, although nowa- 

 days erected on rising ground far beyond the 

 reach of river floods or ocean-tides. We call this 

 "instinct" in the case of ants, "inherited custom" 

 in the case of men ; yet there is obviously no 

 difference. 



There are numerous instances of the effects of 

 Ant-agency in the plants of Tropical America, not 

 reducible to any of the foregoing sections. At 

 Tarapoto, in the Andes of Maynas, a prickly 

 suffruticose Solanum, with pinnate leaves, is 

 frequent in sandy ground. The fruit is a small 

 scarlet edible berry, tasting like that of Physalis. 

 The very prickly calyx persists with the fruit, and 

 is dilated into a wide cup which holds the water of 

 rains, for whose sake it is visited by fire-ants that 

 have their burrows in the sand. The contained 

 water is slightly mucilaginous, and possibly, after 

 standing a while, partakes of the flavour of the berry 

 that is partially immersed in it. After a shower, the 

 ants may be seen crowding on the inner edge of 

 the calyx and sipping the liquid; but in dry weather 

 they fill the calyx, bent apparently on extracting the 

 last drop. The consequence of this crowding into 

 the calyx is to sustain and augment the inflation. 

 The bulging, gummy, water-holding leaf-bases of 

 many epiphytal Bromels seem to owe those 

 properties to the same influence, for they are 

 commonly infested by ants, whose papery nest, 

 indeed, often envelops the root of the plant. 



