been eaten, but this may have resulted from the prolonged efforts of 

 the living ants to cany the dead out of the nests. When the insects 

 were being liberated at Victoria after a month of captivity, almost 

 the first thing they did was to bring out their dead ants and carry 

 them as far from their nests as the boundaries of their inclosures 

 would permit. 



The extremely slight mortality of the ants during the journey is an 

 evidence, certainty, of considerable hardiness. The unexpectedly 

 good result was probably due also, in a measure, to the fact that the 

 insects were transported during the rainy season when the atmos- 

 pheric humidity was high and the soil in the cages did not dry out 

 rapidly. The margin of safety is evidently a rather narrow one; If the 

 soil is too wet the insects forsake their chambers and crowd together 

 at the surface. When this was noticed the cloth covers were removed 

 to give more air and permit more rapid evaporation. Too great dry- 

 ness, however, is a much more serious danger. Unless the color of 

 the soil be carefully watched the first intimation of difficulty is likely 

 to come in the form of dead ants. The danger could be lessened, of 

 course, by increasing the quantit}^ of soil in the cages, but this would 

 have the disadvantage of additional bulk and weight, important con- 

 siderations where transportation is so difficult as in Guatemala. 



It seemed possible when the first report was sent in, that the very 

 limited distribution of the ants might be due to some inability on 

 their part to dig in other than the very loose shale soil which covers 

 the particular slopes specialty preferred by the insects, according to 

 the belief of the Indians. Later, however, the ants were found in 

 somewhat different situations, and even on level bottom lands, though 

 such are very rare in that part of Guatemala. Considerable diver- 

 sity of soil was also revealed during the excavations made in cap- 

 turing the colonies brought to the United States. Furthermore, 

 another way was found of explaining wtry the ants have so limited 

 a range. It is onty on these very loose soils that weeds can be 

 pulled easily, and hence it is only these which can be cleared without 

 burning. A nearly continuous cultivation can be maintained, which 

 is very exceptional under Indian methods of agriculture. The cotton 

 is planted, too, during the latter half of October— a very rainy period 

 when burning is impracticable, so that the ants are not destroved, as 

 must happen in the clearing of land for corn, beans, and other crops. 

 If these considerations have the supposed bearing, it is not impossi- 

 ble that in the United States, where the land is cultivated more con- 

 tinuously, the ants may multipty and extend their boundaries much 

 more rapidly than they have been able to do in Guatemala. 



Every practicable effort was made in Guatemala to find the ants in 

 other localities more accessible than the remote and mountainous dis- 

 trict where they were first discovered and from which the caged insects 



