1886. ] Notes on the Leaf-cutting Ants of Trinidad. 123 
But we must reach Amecameca by dark, as in traveling 
through the woods after twilight we might fall in with objection- 
able company. 
At twelve o’clock we began the descent, and it reminded me 
strongly of the twenty minutes’ descent or run down Vesuvius. 
After zigzagging down over the snow and ice, now quite yielding, 
stopping frequently to rest one’s tired knee-joints, on reaching 
the sand below the snow fields, my two guias each took one of 
my arms and we ran down the long sandy slope arm-in-arm. We 
reached La Cruz by about two o’clock, and walking on a mile or 
so more down the slope, I found a horse which Mr. Ober had sent 
me, in waiting. Reaching the ranch at about three, after half an 
hour’s rest and refreshment, Mr. Ober and myself rode with our 
guide Rafael fifteen miles to Amecameca, while our guias trotted 
the whole distance on foot behind their pack mules. 
Nothing is more monotonous in its flatness than a Mexican 
bedstead, while the mattress is only thicker than a Mexican blan- 
ket, the bed being but a little more yielding than the soft side of 
a pine board, but that night—spent in a second-class Mexican 
hostelry, after such a long day’s work with the, alpenstock 
and in the saddle, half frozen in the morning on the mountain side 
and half roasted in the hot mountain gorges and on the dusty 
plains in the afternoon,—that night was given without reservation 
to the worship of Morpheus. The next day at ten we reached the 
site of ancient Tenochtitlan, rested in the grand plaza under the 
shade of the orange and banana, by the plashing fountain, our 
eyes feasting on the varied, ever-changing pictures of Indian, 
Mestijo and Spanish types of Mexican life passing before us in 
that famous square. 
NOTES ON THE CECODOMAS, OR LEAF-CUTTING 
ANTS, OF TRINIDAD. 
BY C. BRENT. 
N opportunity was afforded me during the winter of 1884-5 
® for studying the life and habits of this most interesting spe- 
cies on the Island of Trinidad, West Indies. Several species are 
here distinguished ; all, however, are alike in form and habit, the 
variety being produced by variation in size and color. These 
Insects are extremely numerous, indeed one cannot take a walk 
anywhere in the country without observing broad columns of 
