l8o A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



are reddish; the head and thorax have irregularly arranged 

 punctures, each elytron has nine grooves containing punc- 

 tures. This beetle probably acts as a scavenger. At one 

 large opening were perhaps a dozen big worker or soldier 

 ants, with enormous heads, apparently being dragged out 

 by much smaller workers; others of the soldiers seemed to 

 be fighting among themselves. Something was evidently 

 amiss. We examined the ant-paths both near the nest and 

 at a distance; where in July were hundred of workers each 

 bearing its piece of leaf, fruit or flower, were now only one 

 or two, laden as usual but lonely. 



Alongside the railroad west of the crater was a wonderful 

 path worn by the tiny ant feet along the face of a steep bank. 

 It could be clearly traced as a hard bare streak for fifteen 

 to twenty feet and was one to two inches wide. The bank 

 was thickly clothed with grasses, ferns and other plants 

 and this bare ledge was plainly visible from the opposite 

 side of the railroad cut. About 8 in the morning of July 22 

 the ants were only beginning to work and few leaf-fragments 

 were being carried. When we passed about 10.30 the sun 

 was hot and there was tremendous activity among the leaf- 

 cutters and at 3.15 they were still carrying leaves into the 

 nest although it was raining. Across one ant trail there 

 were three columns of small black ants, which caused some 

 interruption and excitement. Leaf-cutters without burdens 

 met and crossed antennae with the blacks, but there was 

 no actual fighting. On September 28 these trails were 

 abandoned and at the mouth of the nest only one leaf-cutter 

 was seen. These ants travel great distances, it is said as 

 much as half a mile, to the plants whose leaves they cut up, 

 and it is quite possible that this large nest sent armies to 

 the coffee plantations on the crater side, thereby drawing 

 upon itself the wrath of the planter. There is constant 

 warfare upon the leaf-cutters by the latter, who fights them 



