48 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



who so closely studied these interesting Ants, 

 was never able to satisfy himself absolutely as 

 to the real function of the large-headed workers, 

 and his suggestion that they may serve, in some 

 way, as passive protectors of the real workers, 

 their large, hard, and indestructible heads acting 

 as veritable pieces de resistance against the on- 

 slaughts made by their foes, while picturesque, 

 does not seem to be quite a logical explanation. 



It is the small worker Saubas who ascend 

 the trees in thousands, and with their sharp, 

 scissor-like jaws cut up the leaves into nearly 

 semi-circular pieces, which they bear off in 

 triumph, or throw to the ground to be carried 

 off by one of the small workers. These Ants 

 are a serious pest in tropical America, on account 

 of their habit of attacking and entirely stripping 

 the foliage from the cultivated coffee and orange 

 trees ; for although they will confine their atten- 

 tions to the foliage of the young forest trees, 

 when nothing better to their liking is within 

 reach, directly the unfortunate settler plants his 

 coffee and orange, or other fruit trees, the Sauba 

 Ants quit the surrounding forest and transfer 

 their unwelcome attentions to the recently 

 imported trees and bushes. 



It is a most extraordinary sight to see a 

 great army of the Sauba worker minors engaged 

 upon stripping the foliage from a tree. There 

 is a constant procession of the insects ascending 

 and descending the tree; the ascending army 

 hastening eagerly upwards to their work, while 

 the descending multitude pass down the trunk, 

 each individual carrying securely in its mandibles 



