168 
seek larger quarters. 
shelter, easy of access, is provided: ready-made 
for the ants. ; Bia 
The Imbauba furnishes: food as well as lodg- 
ings to these ants. At the bases of the leaf 
‘stalks, amid clusters of hairs, are formed many 
‘small, egg-shaped, albuminous bodies. These 
are the solid food of the ants. Upon various 
parts of the tree there are glands which secrete 
nectar. All ants are extravagantly fond of 
honey, and they will get it wherever they can. 
Flowers are the commonest source of nectar, 
‘but its purpose in them is to attract the bees, 
butterflies, and even birds which transfer the 
pollen to the pistils, and so fertilize them. Ants 
cannot fertilize most flowers, so their taking the 
nectar would be mere robbery. The floral 
nectaries must therefore be protected. This 
protection is effected by the feeding nectaries 
being situated between the flowers and the tree 
trunk. The ants get enough honey from these 
extra floral nectaries to make them willing to 
let the others alone. 
Thus the friendly ants are supplied by the 
Imbauba with lodging, and both solid food and 
sweetmeats. Receiving both food and shelter 
without labor, they have nothing to do but 
fight. They fight on every possible occasion, 
and always vigorously and successfully. They 
attack not only leaf-cutting ants which seek 
supplies from the trees in which they live, but 
also the larger herbivorous animals. One can 
easily imagine how disagreeable it would be for 
some browsing mammal to have its mouth fu- 
riously stung by a lot of ants which it had taken 
in with a mouthful of leaves. A few experi- 
ences of this sort would be sufficient to teach it 
to beware of garrisoned trees. 
That this defense is equally effective against 
men is shown by an incident which Mr. Belt, a 
traveler in Nicaragua, narrates. Mr. Belt says 
that he doubted that ants could drive off a man 
who was determined toclimbanImbauba. He 
therefore offered an Indian lad a small sum if 
he would climb one of the trees. The lad un- 
hesitatingly refused to try, and so Mr. Belt 
raised his price. Finally, after he had made 
what he thought was an extravagantly liberal 
offer, the boy consented to try. A tree ofa size 
convenient for.climbing was selected. The boy 
In this way..a perfect. 
NATURE'S REALM. 
climbed well for fifteen feet or thereabouts, then ~ 
he stopped, and in a moment dropped to the 
ground all covered with small fiery-red ants 
that were stinging him pitilessly. He could 
not.rid himselt of the creatures except by jump- 
ing into the stream near by. 
Other tropical trees maintain similar garri- 
sons, quartering them in thorns or other hollow 
parts. That these armies are indispensable to 
the perfect development of the trees is shown 
by the statements of Prof. Schimper, of Bonn, 
and confirmed by other travelers in Central and 
South America. Prof. Schimper says that, 
during his stay in tropical America, he made it 
one of his chief objects to find a well-grown 
Imbauba which had no ants in it. He failed to 
find a single tree. He did see, however, that 
unless the trees were garrisoned when they 
were very young, they fell an easy prey to their 
enemies. He found many young trees which 
were more or less bare of leaves. These had 
no ants in them. Other trees of equal age, 
which were tenanted, were apparently flour- 
ishing. 
Yet certain men of science say that it is fool- 
ish to believe that ants are ever provided by a 
tree with board and lodging in return for doing 
a little fighting for them once ina while. They 
say that, since the hollow places existed in the 
trees, the ants simply appropriated them, and 
that they would naturally object to an Indian 
lad shaking their nests down about their ears, 
or to a swarm of hostile ants scrambling about 
and chewing the leaves. 
They ask, also, if they themselves should be 
any better off if they had to feed a lot of hungry 
creatures. Yet in feudal times each petty 
baron fed and housed his retainers without 
complaining, just because they did a little 
fighting for him once inawhile. We are living 
in a time when our struggle for existence seems 
peacetul, when men fight no longer with swords 
and spears, but with pens and mining stocks. 
Unfortunately the lower organisms, both ani- 
mal and vegetable, have not reached this pleas- 
ing state, and even now each creature tries 
either to kill or to make friends with every 
other. 
If a plant can, at the sacrifice of some nectar 
and albumen, save its life and propagate its 
