120 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



From these the workers, under protection of soldiers, go 

 forth in great armies along beaten paths. They seek out 

 particular plants from which the leaves and stems are 

 methodically snipped off. The booty is carried back to 

 the nest, taken underground, and chewed into fine bits 

 by another caste. The soft finely divided mass is then 

 spread out in underground beds and planted with a pecu- 

 liar fungus which is the sole food of leaf cutters. The 

 particular species of fungus used by the ants has never 

 been found except in their nests. It is, therefore, as much 



Fio. 68. An ant's nest showing queen, workers, soldiers, eggs, larvae, pupae, 



and beetle guests. 



a "tame" or cultivated crop as the cabbages and potatoes 

 of men. When a young queen is ready to start a new 

 colony she takes a little pellet from the fungus bed and 

 places it in a little pocket at the back of her mouth. She 

 then goes to some favorable locality, digs a little burrow in 

 the ground, cuts and chews a few leaves, and makes a little 

 bed. The pellet is taken from her mouth and planted on 

 the bed. All these operations take a month or more and 

 during this time the queen takes no food. She now lays 

 eggs and cares for the larvae which hatch from them. As 



