68 DISEASES, ETC. 



that contained former nests, an equal persistence and careful 

 watching is needed to keep the ground clear. Where cultivation 

 is conducted in proximity to a large area of forest lands the 

 matter becomes a very difficult one indeed, for not only have the- 

 local nests to be destroyed but also those in the distant wood- 

 lands, and especially the large nests, a raid from which will 

 frequently do irreparable damage to a plantation in a single 

 night. There are many methods in use for compassing their 

 destruction, the most common being that of digging out and 

 puddling with water. Some forms of destruction are suitable- 

 for one locality and some for another. Where a constant watch 

 for new nests is regularly kept, as at the Royal Botanic Gardens, 

 they do not become of any great size before they are discovered, 

 and a dose of coal tar poured into their nest eftectually disposes- 

 of them, once and for all, at that particular spot, as they never 

 again return where coal tar has once been applied. Other nests 

 can best be attacked by using the fumes of sulphur driven in by- 

 bellows or fan. A handy machine lately introduced, 

 costing some ^24.00, known as the " Asphyxia tor," can 

 be used wilh sulphur or any other chemical producing 

 deadly fumes. These ants will, when on raid from a large nest, 

 make a track as much as 10 or 12 inches wide (from which 

 every portion of herbage is carefully cut away) for the purpose 

 o£ carrying home to the nest the leaves they cut from the trees, 

 and several large trees are often completely cleared of leaves and 

 flowers in the space of a single night. Each ant is able to carry 

 » piece of leaf half an inch in diameter, and hold it in its 

 mandibles aV)ove its head, resembling when on the march the 

 sails of a fleet of liliputian schooners dipping and swaying to the 

 wind. Belt, in the Naturalist in Nicaragua, studied these 

 insects and came to the conclusion that the leaf is not used 

 primarily for food, but is chewed up, and placed in a position 

 where the mycelium of certain fungi at once attack it, and form 

 f«iod for the ants and their Inrvse, Certain it is, that a peculiar 

 mycelium is found permeating the inside of every nest, and gives 

 tit it a peculiar odour of its own, which once recognized, is again 

 •a-sjly distinguished. Belt's observation has since been c(>nfiim( d 

 by the observations of the writer, who for several years had 

 artificial nests under observation. In these the ants could be 

 swell feeding themselves and their lar\8B upon the conidia of the 

 futkgus, which is actually cultivated for food by these creatures. 



There are several species of aphides or p'aiit lice itc, w hich 

 attack OacHO, but unless the plant is in bad health from some 

 »ther cause they seldom do any great harm, espi cially if cleaii'i- 

 4k«^t> jfiui orc[(?r, are the lule on the plantation. It has been found 

 Wwever that it isi quite possible for any biting or sucking insect 



