INTERRELATIONS OF INSECTS 



277 



Leaf -cutting Ants. The most dangerous foes to vegetation in 

 tropical America are the several species of Atta ((Ecodoma, Fig. 287, A). 

 Living in enormous colonies and capable of stripping a tree of its leaves 

 in a few hours, these formidable ants are the despair of the planter; 



FIG. 286. Honey an.ts, Myrmecocystus meUiger, clinging to the roof of their chamber. About 



natural size. After McCooK. 



where they are abundant it becomes impossible to grow the orange, coffee, 

 mango and many other plants. These ants dig an extensive under- 

 ground nest, piling the excavated earth into a mound, sometimes thirty 

 or forty feet in diameter, and making paths in various directions from 



FIG. 287. A, leaf-cutting ant, Atta ccphalotcs. B, wandering ant, Eciton drepanophorum; 

 C, Eciton omniwriim. Natural size. After SHIPLEY. 



the nest for access to the plants of the vicinity; Belt often found these 

 ants at work half a mile from their nest; they attack flowers, fruits and 

 seeds, but chiefly leaves. Each ant, by laboring four or five minutes, 

 bites out a more or less circular fragment of a leaf (Fig. 288) and carries 

 it home, or else drops it for another worker to carry; and two strings of 



