Architecture in the Animal Kingdom. 129 



tions. These ants use their larvae as ''spinning 

 wheels/' not only for building their paper-nests, but 

 also, according to Holland, for protecting their nests 

 against the invasions of small ants, with whom they 

 are in continual warfare. Around the trunk of the 

 tree containing their nest they sometimes put a belt 

 a foot broad, formed of threads, which serves to 

 entangle the small ants and prevent them from climb- 

 ing the tree. In manufacturing this protective tissue 

 the ants come forth from their nest, each carrying a 

 white pellet in its mouth, and move to and fro on the 

 trunk. Upon closer inspection it was found that those 

 little white lumps were again their larvae ! 



These curious phenomena needed to be corrobo- 

 rated by further investigation. Forel in his "Die 

 Nester der Ameisen" (p. 20) already called attention 

 to the fact that the mandibular glands of Oecophylla 

 are strongly developed and possess large and numer- 

 ous cells. From the analogy with other ant species 

 {Cremastogaster, Dolichoderus, etc.), which secrete 

 a certain glue from their mandibular glands for manu- 

 facturing their paper-nests, it might seem probable, 

 that the spinning material of Oecophylla proceeds 

 from the ants' mouth. But, on the other hand, Pro- 

 fessor Chun has recently shown in his splendid book 

 ''From the Depths of the Ocean," ^ that the spinning 

 glands of the OecophyUa-\arya.e are far more developed 

 than those found in other larvae of ants. We must 

 conclude, therefore, that Mr. Holland's statements 

 were quite exact, and that the spinning glands of the 

 larvae, not the salivary glands of the ants themselves. 



I) "Aus den Tiefen des Weltmeeres," 2d ed., Jena, 1903, p. 129. 

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