126 Notes on the Leaf-cutting Ants of Trinidad. (February, 
outward bound keeping the right hand side, while those return- 
ing home traveled along the left. The incoming ants were nearly 
all laden with their leafy burdens which they carried tightly 
gripped between their mandibles, sometimes nearly upright, or 
thrown back so as to completely hide the insect below. This 
curious fashion of carrying the leaves has earned for them the 
common English name of “ parasol” or “ umbrella ants.” 
Along the path were several heaps of leaves, which were prob- 
ably carried away by a fresh relay of workers ; often these heaps 
may be noticed lying deserted along the pathways, but they are 
invariably removed, sooner or later, to the nest. The leaves 
Fic. 2.—Ants at work leaf-cutting. 
were those of the cocoa, so I traced the column down the hill- 
side some four hundred yards to the edge of a cocoa plantation, 
_where I found them actively engaged in leaf-cutting. The smaller 
trees were swarming with the little depredators, leaves were fall- 
ing plentifully as the little sawyers snipped them out. Numbers 
of ants marched up the tree and numbers marched down, very 
deftly managing their awkward-looking burdens. Sometimes 
they progressed sidelong down the tree, sometimes backwards, 
_ according to the condition of the surface over which they walked . 
In operating on a leaf the ant places herself upon the upper 
