120 HYMENOPTERA. 



and store up immense quantities of leaves in their nests, cutting 

 them into pieces of a convenient size to carry, and especially pre- 

 ferring imported to native plants. Mr. Belt, who has given an 

 account of their habits in his Naturalist in Nicaragua, believed that 

 the ants use the leaves as a hotbed for growing a particular kind 

 of fungus, on which they feed. M'Cook does not share this 

 opinion, but thinks that the ants live on the juices of the leaves, 

 and that the presence of a fungus is only accidental ; he is also of 

 opinion that the leaves are used in the construction of a kind of 

 comb. When the best authorities disagree, we can only await the 

 result of further and more conclusive observations. 



Belt records a curious instance of their sagacity. After several 

 had been crushed in crossing the tramways, they constructed sub- 

 ways under the rails, and one day, when the cars were not running, 

 Belt stopped up the tunnels, but, although many ants were thus 

 cut off from the nest, they would not attempt to cross the rails 

 again, but immediately set to work making fresh tunnels. He 

 succeeded in destroying many of them by sprinkling corrosive 

 sublimate across their paths in dry weather, which drives them mad. 

 He has given a most graphic account of its effects, which I cannot 

 resist the temptation of quoting: "As soon as one of the ants 

 touches the white powder, it commences to run about wildly, and 

 to attack any other ant it comes across. In a couple of hours 

 round balls of the ants will be found, all biting each other ; and 

 numerous individuals will be seen bitten completely in two, whilst 

 others have lost some of their legs or antennae. News of the 

 commotion is carried to the formicarium, and large fellows, 

 measuring three-quarters of an inch in length, that only come out 

 of the nest during a migration or an attack on the nest or one of 

 the working columns, are seen stalking down with a determined 

 air, as if they would soon right matters. As soon, however, as 

 they have touched the sublimate, all their stateliness leaves them ; 

 they rush about; their legs are seized hold of by some of the 

 smaller ants already affected by the poison ; and they themselves 

 begin to bite, and in a short time become the centre of fresh balls 

 of rabid ants." 



Belt was once much annoyed by an attack, made by the ants 

 belonging to a nest at some distance, upon his garden. He made 

 the nest untenable by pouring carbolic acid and water into the 

 formicarium, when the foraging parties were all immediately with- 

 drawn, and at once occupied themselves in carrying away every- 



