INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS 



337 



Mexico, New Mexico and southern Colorado. In this species 

 some of the workers hang sluggishly from the roof of their 

 little dome-like chamber, several inches underground, and act 

 as permanent receptacles for the so-called honey, which is a 

 transparent sugary exudation from certain oak-galls ; it is gath- 

 ered at night by the foraging workers and regurgitated to the 



FIG. 282. 



Honey ants, Myrmecocystus melliger, clinging to the roof of their chamber. About 

 natural size. After McCooK. 



mouths of the " honey-bearers," whose crops at length become 

 distended with honey to such an extent that the insects (Fig. 

 282) look like so many little translucent grapes or good-sized 

 currants. This stored food is in all probability drawn upon 

 by the other ants when necessary. 



Leaf-cutting Ants. The most dangerous foes to vegeta- 

 tion in tropical America are the several species of Atta (CEco- 

 doma, Fig. 283, A). Living in enormous colonies and capable 

 of stripping a tree of its leaves in a few hours, these formida- 

 ble ants are the despair of the planter; where they are abun- 

 dant it becomes impossible to grow the orange, coffee, mango 

 and many other plants. These ants dig an extensive under- 

 ground nest, piling the excavated earth into a mound, some- 

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