CHAPTER VII 

 ANTS AND PLANTS 



WHEN the traveller first visits the tropics, the surprising 

 number of ants in every conceivable situation is a 

 feature which cannot fail to attract his attention. The 

 sugar-bowl on his tea-table will soon be besieged by 

 hordes of a tiny ant (Monomorium pharaonis), a cosmo- 

 politan species. The long line of ants which he fre- 

 quently sees crossing his dining-room floor can be 

 traced to some fragment of food dropped at a previous 

 meal. If a naturalist, should he carelessly leave on 

 some table or shelf a specimen destined for the museum 

 or collecting-box, in an hour or two he will see this 

 specimen a revolting, seething mass of ants. When he 

 takes his walks abroad, the same abundance of ant-life 

 presents itself. There in the jungle he will see solitary 

 individuals of a gigantic Camponotus hurrying along ; 

 or perhaps a long train of Cremastogaster with abdomen, 

 shaped like the ace of spades, held aloft. If he brushes 

 incautiously against some shrub growing in an open 

 space, he may soon feel the vicious bite of the " Ker- 

 inga " ((Ecophylla smaragdina), which forms its nests by 

 sewing living leaves together with the silk of its larvae. 

 Let him beware of that band of shining black ants 

 crossing the path yonder, for that is Sima, one of the 



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