298 J. C. BRANNER — DECOMPOSITION OF ROCKS IX BRAZIL. 



an idea of the amount of vegetable matter carried into the ground b}'' 

 them : * 



"Passing one day near a tree that stood almost alone, I was surprised to hear 

 the sound of leaves falhng to the ground, though the air was calm. . . . What 

 increased my astonishment was the fact that the falling leaves had their natural 

 color, and that the tree seemed to he perfectly sound. I went up to see the reason 

 of this phenomenon, and found on almost every petiole an ant at work with all its 

 might. The petiole was soon cut off, and the leaf fell to the ground. Another 

 scene was going on at the foot of the tree. The ground was covered with ants 

 occupied in cutting up the leaves as fast as they fell, and the pieces were carried at 

 once into the nest. ... In less than an hour the work was done before my 

 eyes, and the tree stood completely defoliated." 



Burmeister says some of the large ants (Atta cephalotes) will "strip 



whole trees in a single day "t and carry the leaves into the ground. 



"A good-sized mango tree, at least as large as an average apple tree, I saw 

 stripped of every leaf in one night." j 



The following is an account of the saitbas in Sao Paulo : § 



"The enemy most dreaded in the fazendas is indubitably the suava or Tana-jiira, 

 a black-hrown ant tM'o centimeters long, which undermines the ground by digging 

 extensive passages and dens in all directions. It attacks all sorts of trees, the coffee, 

 shrub among others . . .'In former times these ants seem to have worked 

 frightful havoc in the cafesaes (coffee fields) by causing land slips, because the means 

 of destroying whole nests at that time was not discovered. Now they are less feared, 

 although it still costs from 8 to 12 guineas a month per ])lantation to keep them 

 down. On exery fazenda (plantation) two or three slaves are kept whose exclusive 

 business it is to find out the nests of the. sa(a'«.s . . . The subterranean ant laby- 

 rinth destroyed in my presence near the fazenda Areas in Cantagallo seemed to be 

 very extensive." 



From a geological point of view the extent of these underground pas- 

 sages, the nature and amount of the materials carried into them and the 

 size of the colonies are matters of importance. 



Termites. — Some of the termites or white ants of Brazil (popularlj'' 

 known as ciip'un) live upon wood and build their nests upon the trunks 

 or branches of trees, while others live in and upon the ground and build 

 their houses of clay upon its surface. Here, again, I have not concerned 

 mvself with the number of species, for it is the numl)er of individuals 

 and their habits with which we are chiefly concerned. || 



*Lettre sur les fourmis du Br6sil. M. Lund. Ann. des Soi. Naturelles, xxiii, p. 118. 



t Reise nach Brasilien, p. 372. 



X Notes on the Oecodomas or Leaf-cutting Ant.«. C. Brent. Amer. Naturalist, vol. xx, 1880, p. 124 



§ Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee Culture in America, Asia and Africa. C. F. Van D^lden 

 Laerne. London, 1885, pp. 297, 298. 



II It J. Barbosa Rodrigues saj's there are two species— one living on wood and in trees, the other 

 on the ground (Revista do Inst. Hist, do Brazil, xliv, pt. i, 1881, p. 76). Dr Fritz Miiller, however, 

 fin excellent entomologist, who has lived many years in southern Brazil, says that he has found 

 there 15 or 16 species (O Auxiliador da Industria Nacional. Rio de Janeiro, 1874, xlii, p. 518)- 

 Jenaisch Zeitschrift, vii, 1873, pp. 33:5-358, 451-463. Abstr. An. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., xiii, 

 1874, pp. 402-404. These species do not all live on the ground, however. 



