in ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 283 



and the ants ; those varieties of trees which were in any 

 way distasteful or unsuitable escaping destruction, while the 

 ants were becoming slowly adapted to attack new trees. 

 Thus in time the great majority of native trees have acquired 

 some protection against the ants, while foreign trees, not 

 having been so modified, are more likely to be suitable for 

 their purposes. Mr. Belt carried on war against them for 

 four years to protect his garden in Nicaragua, and found 

 that carbolic acid and corrosive sublimate were most effectual 

 in destroying or driving them away. 



The use to which the ants put the immense quantities of 

 leaves they carry away has been a great puzzle, and is, per- 

 haps, not yet quite understood. Mr. Bates found that the 

 Amazon species used them to thatch the domes of earth cover- 

 ing the entrances to their subterranean galleries, the pieces of 

 leaf being carefully covered and kept in position by a thin layer 

 of grains of earth. In Nicaragua Mr. Belt found the under- 

 ground cells full of a brown flocculent matter, which he con- 

 siders to be the gnawed leaves connected by a delicate fungus 

 which ramifies through the mass and which serves as food for 

 the larvae ; and he believes that the leaves are really gathered 

 as manure-heaps to favour the growth of this fungus ! 



When they enter houses, which they often do at night, 

 the Saiibas are very destructive. Once, when travelling on 

 the Rio Negro, I had bought about a peck of rice, which was 

 tied up in a large cotton handkerchief and placed on a bench 

 in a native house where we were spending the night. The 

 next morning we found about half the rice on the floor, the 

 remainder having been carried away by the ants ; and the 

 empty handkerchief was still on the bench, but with hundreds 

 of neat cuts in it reducing it to a kind of sieve. 1 



The foraging ants of the genus Eciton are another remark- 

 able group, especially abundant in the equatorial forests of 

 America. They are true hunters, and seem to be continually 

 roaming about the forests in great bands in search of insect 

 prey. They especially devour maggots, caterpillars, white 

 ants, cockroaches, and other soft insects ; and their bands 



1 For a full and most interesting description of the habits and instincts of 

 this ant, see Bates' Naturalist on the River Amazons, 2d ed., pp. 11-18 ; 

 and Belt's Naturalist in Nicaragua, pp. 71-84. 



