ECONOMY OF LABOUR 237 



0'accomplit sous mes yeux, et 1'arbre resta entitlement 

 de*pouilleV 



Bates l gives an apparently similar, but really very 

 different account. * The Saiiba ants/ he says, ' mount 

 the tree in multitudes, the individuals being all 

 worker-minors. Each one places itself on the surface 

 of a leaf, and cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws a 

 nearly semicircular incision on the upper side ; it then 

 takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk 

 detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to 

 the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried 

 off by another relay of workers ; but, generally, each 

 marches off with the piece it has operated upon.' 



Dr. Kerner recounts* the following story communi- 

 cated to him by Dr. Gredler of Botzen : 



* One of his colleagues at Innsbruck, says that 

 gentleman, had for months been in the habit of sprink- 

 ling pounded sugar on the sill of his window, for a 

 train of ants, which passed in constant procession from 

 the garden to the window. One day, he took it into 

 his head to put the pounded sugar into a vessel, 

 which he fastened with a string to the transom of the 

 window; and, in order that his long-petted insects 

 might have information of the supply suspended above, 

 a number of the same set of ants were placed with the 

 sugar in the vessel. These busy creatures forthwith 



1 JfaturaJut <m th* Amasoni, vol. i. p. 2. 



* Flatcfri and tktir UtHtUf* Gt*t, Dr. A. Kerner. Trans, by 

 W. Ogle, 1878. p. 31. 



