Natural History 519 



legs, and gauzy wings. She endured this for a few minutes, 

 then moved her wings, threw off her load of busy mechanics, 

 slowly rose in the air followed by the males, and was soon lost 

 to view. 



But on another occasion the observer was able to follow 

 the story farther, for he saw a queen descend in a long spiral 

 to the ground, rest a few minutes, clean her antenna?, and begin 

 to scrape at the sand with her jaws the foundation of a new 

 colony at which for many days she labours alone. She plants 

 the little fungus pellet she has carried with her from the old 

 nest in a pouch in the lower part of her mouth, and tends it with 

 the utmost solicitude. The care and feeding in her past life 

 have stored within her the substance for vast numbers of eggs. 

 Nine out of ten she lays, she eats to give her strength to go on 

 with her labours, and when the first larva? emerge they too are 

 fed with surplus eggs. 



There are three castes of workers, large "soldiers," ordinary 

 "workers," and small "workers," or, as Mr. Beebe names them, 

 Maxims, Mediums, and Minims. The first brood, which hatches 

 out in about six weeks, are all minims, and they take charge at 

 once of the fungus, enlarging the nest, attending to the queen 

 and young, and other domestic occupations. When the larger 

 workers emerge, foraging and leaf -cutting begin. In bands they 

 issue forth and search about until they find one of the ant trails 

 trodden down by millions of their kind before them, and stream 

 along it till instinct impels them to climb a tree and drives each 

 ant out upon a leaf. 



Standing firmly on the leaf he measures his distance by 

 cutting across the segment of a circle with one of his hind 

 feet as a centre. . . . He does not scissor his way across, 

 but bit by bit sinks the tip of one jaw, hook-like, into the 

 surface and brings the other up to it, slicing through the 

 tissue with surprising ease. . . . Holding his bit of leaf 

 edgewise he bends his head as far down as possible and 



