THE ATTAS AT HOME l&l 



When the fungus garden is in full growth, the 

 nest kbors of the Mininis begin, and until the 

 knobbed bodies are actually ripe, they never 

 cease to weed and to prune, thus killing off the 

 multitude of other fungi and foreign organisms, 

 and by pruning they keep their particular fun- 

 gus growing, and prevent it from fructifying. 

 The fungus of the Attas is a particular species 

 with the resonant, Dunsanyesque name of Boz- 

 ites gongylophora. It is quite unknown outside 

 of the nests of these ants, and is as artificial as 

 a banana. 



Only in Calcutta bazaars at night, and in un- 

 derground streets of Pekin, have I seen stranger 

 beings than I unearthed in my Atta nest. Now 

 and then there rolled out of a shovelful of earth, 

 an unbelievably big and rotund Cicada larva — 

 which in the course of time, whether in one or 

 in seventeen years, would emerge as the great 

 marbled winged Cicada gigas, spreading five 

 inches from tip to tip. Small tarantulas, w^ith 

 beautiful wnne-colored cephalothorax, made their 

 home deep in the nest, guarded, perhaps, by their 

 dense covering of hair; slender scorpions sidled 

 out from the ruins. They were bare, with vul- 

 nerable joints, but they had the advantage of 



