114 TRINIDAD. 



such as the pimento, the cinnamon, &c. ; they also select soft 

 rather than coriaceous leaves, and climb to the top of high trees 

 to get at the young and tender leaflets. When arrived at an 

 eligible spot for foraging, they set to work immediately, each ant 

 selecting the margin of a leaf wheref rom to cut a portion ; this 

 it does with its mandibles, by the movement of the head, the 

 body being motionless, so that the cut is circular. When the 

 portion is nearly separated, it is grasped by the two first legs, 

 and once cut out, the insect elevates it between the mandibles lyr 

 one extremity, so that the whole weight of the severed leaf bears 

 backwards, and thus proceeds with its burden homewards. 

 Some of these cuttings are sometimes half an inch in diameter, 

 and when, as is generally the case, in large bands, they present a 

 most singular appearance, each insect seeming gravely to march 

 under shelter of a parasol ; hence their name of parasol-ants. A 

 great many of the youngest ants accompany the labourers, and 

 as many as seven I have seen clinging to the cutting of a leaf, 

 in which manner they are carried home by their elders. In 

 severing the leaves, many pieces are dropped from the tree, and 

 taken up by those that are at the foot. After they have stripped 

 a tree or plant bare, they proceed to another ; but as soon as the 

 plant first attacked begins to send forth new shoots they return 

 to it, so that after it has been thus deprived of its foliage two or 

 three times, it withers away, or becomes so much enfeebled as to 

 be altogether unproductive. In one single night the parasol- 

 ants will bare a tree of its foliage ; and the damage they occa- 

 sion is such, in some localities, as greatly to discourage the 

 culture of yams, manioc, and other of their favourite plants. 

 The town of Port of Spain may be said to be infested with the 

 dark parasol-ants, and it is only by constant watchfulness and 

 unceasing exertions that roses, vines, &c, can be preserved from 

 their attacks ; it is sometimes even difficult to reach them so as 

 to insure their destruction, for they often nest in walls, and the 

 very walls of the houses. 



Various methods have been tried for destroying these enemies : : 

 poisons, fumigations, and lastly water, by way of submerging 

 their abodes, and drowning them. Arsenic, corrosive sublimate, 

 mixed up with cassada-meal, orange-rind, &c, have been used as 

 agents in their eradication: for one or two days they readily 

 carry the poisonous substance to the nest, and from the effects of 



