1922] BAILEY—ANT-PLANTS 381 
plants do not need the protection of the Aztecas, since they are 
immunized by various protective devices. 
In the forests of the Kartabo region there are numerous colonies 
of the common leaf cutting and fungus growing ant, Atta cepha- 
lotes L. The writer found, as MOLLER had previously done in the 
case of A. discigera Mayr., A. hystrix Latr., and A. coronata F abr., 
that this ant utilizes the leaves of a great variety of plants in the 
construction of its fungus gardens. In virgin and second growth 
forests, it seldom works for any considerable length of time upon 
a particular type of plant, but continually shifts its activities from 
one species to another. Owing to this fact and to the rapid recovery 
from injury by plants in moist tropical environments, the effects 
of its attacks upon a given species appear to be more or less evanes- 
cent. Its normal leaf cutting habits, however, may be consider- 
ably modified under unusual or abnormal conditions. It frequently 
exhibits a strong preference for plants to which it has not previously 
been accustomed. Thus its attacks upon certain exotic plants in 
gardens and orchards at times may prove to be singularly persistent 
and destructive. 
In many cases Cecropia angulata is not colonized by its guest 
ants until it has attained a considerable size. This is largely due 
to the fact that the young, fecundated queens, which initiate the 
new colonies, are killed by a Hymenopterous parasite, Conoaxima 
_ astecicida Brues. Such plants are no more subject to defoliation 
than are the inhabited individuals. In order to determine whether 
the leaves of the juvenile Cecropia are distasteful to the leaf cutting 
ants, or are unsuitable for their purposes, a number of young plants 
were placed in close proximity to a large nest of Atta cephaloies. 
Leaves of adult Cecropias and of various other plants were used as 
controls. Although the ants worked upon this material in a more 
or less sporadic fashion, and showed a strong preference for certain 
types of leaves, they devoted no more attention to the mature 
than to the juvenile foliage of Cecropia angulata. In view of the 
fact that both Bett and ScuimpeER admit having seen young myrme- 
cophytes defoliated by Attas, there appears to be little evidence 
in favor of the suggestion that juvenile ant-plants are less suscept- 
