THE ATTAS AT HOME 179 
army ants. The Eciton soldier with his long, 
curved scimitars and his swift, nervous move- 
ments, was to one of these great insects as a 
fighting d’Artagnan would be to an armored 
tank. The results were much the same however, 
—perfect efficiency. 
I now dug swiftly and crashed with pick down 
through three feet of soil. The great entrance 
arteries of the nest branched and bifurcated, sep- 
arated and anastomosed, while here and there 
were chambers varying in size from a cocoanut 
to a football. These were filled with what looked 
like soft grayish sponge covered with whitish, 
mold, and these somber affairs were the raison 
d@ étre for all the leaf-cutting, the trails, the strug- 
gles through jungles, the constant battling 
against wind and rain and sun. 
But the labors of the Attas are only renewed 
when a worker disappears down a hole with his 
hard-earned bit of leaf. He drops it and goes 
on his way. We do not know what this way is, 
but my guess is that he turns around and goes 
after another leaf. Whatever the nests of At- 
tas possess, they are without recreation rooms. 
These sluggard-instructors do not know enough 
to take a vacation; their faces are fashioned for 
