200 IN THE GUIANA FOREST. 



construction of a home for ants, so that its tender 

 aerial roots may be protected from cockroaches 

 and other pests? This many species have ac- 

 complished, and now do it so thoroughly as to 

 derive considerable benefit from the contrivance. 

 Perhaps the most perfect of these homes are 

 those provided by Schomburgkia and Diacrium 

 bicornutum. In them we have a hollow pseudo- 

 bulb, into which the ants either find a doorway 

 ready made, or are offered inducements to make 

 one for themselves. The result is a perfectly dry, 

 hollow chamber, on splitting which the tiers of 

 cells and galleries are seen ranged from top to 

 bottom. Another and quite distinct harbour for 

 an ant garrison is that of the Coryanthes. There 

 are several species, all of which appear to grow 

 in the same manner, attached to bush-ropes 

 rather than perched on limbs of trees. This is 

 so obviously suited to their peculiar manner of 

 growth that it is quite conceivable the plants may 

 have been first carried up from the sand by the 

 tightening of the stem of a creeper as a growing 

 tree carried its mass of foliage higher and higher. 

 Otherwise, we might fancy they pushed off from a 

 branch and being caught as they fell to make them- 

 selves at home under new conditions. However this 

 may have been, the fact remains that the plant is 



