228 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



creature — unlike her slim, semi-transparent workers and 

 warriors — and most prolific, and her family increases 

 marvellously. As it multiplies, ingenious additions of 

 living leaves are made to the pocket or purse, until it may 

 assume the size of a football and be the home of millions of 

 alert, pugnacious, inquisitive, foraging insects, whose bites 

 are dreaded by individuals whose skin is extra sensitive. 



Is it not astonishing that insects, possessing even in 

 combination such trivial muscular power as the green tree- 

 ant, should be able to cause leaves 12 inches long by 8 

 inches wide to curl up so that the apex shall almost touch 

 the base, or that the parallel borders shall be brought 

 together with the nicest apposition? The astonishment 

 increases when it is recognised that at the founding of a 

 colony there are but few workers to co-operate in the 

 undertaking. 



The minute caterpillar of a certain species of moth 

 mines leaves, and eating away the cellular structures, causes 

 them to twist irregularly, and eventually spins on the spot 

 a cocoon of green silk in which it undergoes metamorphosis. 

 A local caterpillar, too, converts the tough harsh leaves of 

 a fig-tree {Ficus fasciculatd) into a close and perfect scroll 

 by an elaborate system of haulage, spinning silken strands 

 as required, having primarily rendered the leaf the more 

 easy to manipulate by nibbling away a portion of the mid- 

 rib. In this scroll the insect dozes until in process of time 

 it is transformed, and emerges a bright but short-lived 

 butterfly. 



But, as far as my personal observation goes, the green 

 tree-ants do not effect any alteration in the superficial 

 appearance nor destroy the structure of leaves, nor employ 

 any physical power at the first stages of the construction of 

 a habitation. The process by which a leaf is curled 

 extends over several days, and but few take part in it. 

 Half a dozen ants may be seen perpetually engaged in, 

 apparently, an unmethodical but extremely minute and 

 critical inspection of the rhachis and the nerves or ribs of 

 the leaf. Days pass. The ants are there all the time, 



