iv SOCIAL HOMES 153 



to overcome by any combination of strength. The 

 more compact and elegant dwelling of (E. virescens is 

 made of leaves, cut and masticated until they become 

 a coarse pulp. Its diameter is about six inches ; it 

 is suspended among thickest foliage, and sustained 

 not only by the branches on which it hangs, 

 but by the leaves, which are worked into the com- 

 position, and in many parts project from its outer 

 wall. It may be at once distinguished from the nest 

 of Crematogaster by its smoothness and regularity of 

 surface. A species of this genus was discovered in 

 Africa by Foxcroft, who observed that whenever the 

 ants were molested, they rushed out of their house in 

 such numbers that their pattering upon the papery 

 covering deluded him into thinking rain was falling on 

 the leaves above. 



In the forests of Cayenne, the nests of F. bispinosa 

 are remarkably like a sponge, or an overgrown 

 fungus*. The down or cottony matter enveloping the 

 seeds in the pods of the Bombax ceiba is used for their 

 construction, vegetable fibres that are too short to con- 

 vert into fabrics, but which the ants contrive to felt and 

 weave into a compact and uniform mass, so dexter- 

 ously that all trace of the individuality of the threads 

 is lost. The material much resembles amadou*, and 

 like that substance is valuable for stopping violent 

 discharges of blood. In size the nests generally have 

 a diameter of eight or nine inches. The ant itself is 

 little, and dark, and noted for two long sharp spines 

 on its thorax, one on either side ; hence its scientific 

 name of bispinosa, from the Latin meaning two-spined. 

 Popularly it has been called the Fungus Ant. 



