NOTES ON MEXICAN ANTS. 71 
from Rev. Hamlet Clark, that at Constancia, Brazil, the 
proprietor of a plantation used every means to exterminate 
it and failed. “Sometimes in a single night it will strip an 
orange or lemon tree of its leaves; a ditch of water around 
his garden, which quite keeps out all other ants, is of no use. 
This species carries a mine under its bed without any diffi- 
culty. Indeed, I have been assured again and again by sen- 
sible men, that it has undermined, in its progress through 
the country, the great river Pariaba. At any rate, without 
anything like a natural or artificial bridge, it appears on the 
other side and continues its course.” This testimony is con- 
firmed by Mr. Lincecum (Proceedings of Academy of Natural 
Seiences, Philadelphia, 1867, p. 24) in an interesting account 
of the Œc. Texana, which he has observed for eighteen 
years. He states that they often carry their subterranean 
roads for several hundred yards in grassy districts, where 
the grass would prove an impediment to their progress. On 
one oceasion, to secure access to a gentleman’s garden, 
where they were cutting the vegetables to pieces, they tun- 
nelled beneath a creek which was at that place fifteen or 
twenty feet deep, and from bank to bank about thirty feet. 
He also observes that the smaller workers which remain 
around the nest do not seem to join in cutting or carrying 
the leaves, but are occupied with bringing out the sand, 
and generally work in a lazy way, very differently from the 
quick, active leaf-cutters. Also that the pieces of leaves are 
usually dried outside before being carried in, and that if wet 
by a sudden shower are left to decay without. He also 
thinks that their lives are dependent upon access to water, 
and that they always choose places where it is accessible by 
digging wells. In one case, a well was dug by Mr. Pearson 
for his own use, and water found at the depth of thirty feet. 
The ant-well which he followed was twelve inches in di- 
ameter. 
The genus Cryptocerus belongs to another subfamily, 
Cryptoceride, founded on the form of the head, which is 
