SOME INSECT COMMUNITIES 49 



a semi-circular piece of leaf about the size of 

 a sixpenny-piece, which it has cut from the 

 foliage. Indeed the homeward bound army, 

 marching along the path that has been cleared 

 between the tree and the nest, looks like a pro- 

 cession of tiny leaves. On arriving at the nest, 

 these workers drop their burdens, and at once 

 return to the tree ; while another swarm of the 

 worker minors seize upon the pieces of leaves, 

 and placing them into position so as to form a 

 kind of thatch to the mounds covering the 

 entrances to the subterranean nest, cover them 

 with a layer of earthy granules, which they 

 have excavated at some depth below the surface 

 and worked up for this purpose. 



Not content with stripping the trees of their 

 foliage, the Sauba Ants will enter the houses at 

 night, and plunder the stores of provisions; 

 carrying off grain by grain the farinha or 

 mandioca meal, which is so largely used for 

 bread by the artisan classes in Brazil. Bates 

 noted that on these plundering expeditions, two 

 classes of workers are always seen, namely, the 

 small true workers who carry on all the labour, 

 and the large major workers with huge, smooth 

 heads, who do nothing. The third class of 

 workers, with large heads clothed in front with 

 hairs, have not been observed to take any part 

 in these forays, but appear normally to live deep 

 down below the surface of the ground, in the 

 subterranean chambers of the nest. Altogether 

 these Sauba Ants of tropical South America are 

 most interesting insects, and offer a very fruitful 

 field for further investigation. 



