Animal Partnerships 



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caught just under its bill by one of the curved, 

 hook-like thorns, and in trying to extricate it- 

 self got further entangled. Its fluttering dis- 

 turbed the wasps, who flew down upon it and in 

 less than a minute stung it to death." 



Other tropical birds seek the society of sting- 

 ing ants for the same reason. Thus in Nica- 

 ragua many birds hang their nests from the 

 extremities of the branches of the bull's-horn 

 thorn ; and a safer place could hardly be chosen, 

 as with the sharp thorns and the stinging ants 

 that inhabit them no mammal would dare to 

 attempt the ascent of the tree. 



Stinging ants are not the only insects whose 

 protection birds secure by building near their 

 nests, for a small Central American parrot 

 breeds constantly on the plains in a hole made 

 in the subterranean nests of the termites, or 

 destructive " white ants," whose forays are so 

 much dreaded. And a woodpecker of the East- 

 ern Himalayas actually takes up its quarters 

 inside of the habitation of an ant. 



There is a kind of ant there which constructs 

 a globular nest of a soft felt-like material, a 



