LEAF-CUTTINa ANTS. 93 



into a large vault, the chamber where the dead were placed, 

 together with the passage which led to it, being completely 

 covered in. 



Habits Peculiar to Certain Species. 



Leaf-cutting Ants of the Amazon (CEcodoma cephal- 

 otes). — The mode of working practised by these ants is 

 thus described by Mr. Bates : — 



They mount a tree in multitudes. . . . 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 on, and as all take the same road to 

 the colony, the path they follow becomes in a short time smooth 

 and bare, looking like the impression of a cart-wheel through 

 the herbage. 



Each ant carries its semicircular piece of leaf upright 

 over its head, so that the home-returning train is rendered 

 very conspicuous. Nearer observation shows that this 

 home-returning or ladened train of workers keeps to one 

 side of the road, while the outgoing or empty-handed 

 train keeps to the other side ; so that on every road there 

 is a double train of ants going in opposite directions. 

 When the leaves arrive at the nest they are received by a 

 smaller kind of workers, whose duty it is to cut up the 

 pieces of leaf into still smaller fragments, whereby the 

 leaves seem to be better fitted for the purpose to which, 

 as we shall presently see, they are put. These smaller 

 workers never take any part in the outdoor labours ; but 

 they occasionally leave the nest, apparently for the sole 

 purpose of obtaining air and exercise, for when they leave 

 the nest they merely run about doing nothing, and fre- 

 quently, as if in mere sport, mount some of the semi- 

 circular pieces of leaf which the carrier ants are taking to 

 the nest, and so get a ride home. 



From his continued observation of these ants. Bates con 

 eludes — and his opinion has been corroborated by that 



