526 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXV, 
IO. Nests in Tillandsias. 
On December 27 of the past year, while collecting ants in a 
small grove at the head of one of the darrancas near Cuerna- 
vaca, Mexico, I happened on some peculiar nests, concerning 
which I can find no account in the literature. After collecting 
a number of species under the stones, I turned my attention 
to the limbs and foliage of the acacia and guava trees overhead. 
On accidentally pulling to pieces one of the large bud-like epi- 
phytic tillandsias (probably TiVandsia benthamiana Klotzsch), 
very common both in this and other localities about Cuernavaca, 
I was surprised to find it containing whole nests of ants, with 
their larvae and pupz snugly packed away like so many ancho- 
vies in the spaces between the moist overlapping leaves. A 
closer inspection showed that the ants had gnawed little holes 
through the leaves to serve as entrances to their chambers. 
These holes occasionally perforated a single leaf, but quite as 
often they threaded several leaves and extended to the very 
core of the bud. Sometimes a single colony of ants was divided 
up into companies, each occupying the space under a single 
leaf. But the most remarkable fact concerning these nests 
was the frequent occurrence of two or even three flourishing 
colonies belonging to different species in a single tillandsia, 
the whole habitable basal portion of which was rarely more 
than 2-3 inches long by 1% inches in diameter. Often these 
colonies were curiously intermingled in such a manner that 
though there was no actual blending and the space under a 
single leaf was always occupied by ants of the same species, 
still, whole colonies or portions of a single colony were often 
completely surrounded by leaf spaces occupied by another 
colony. During the few hours which I could devote to col- 
lecting, the following seven species — three of them new to 
science, as Professor Forel informs me— were taken from the 
tillandsias : > 
1. Cremastogaster brevispinosa Mayr., var. minutior Forel. 
2. Camponotus abdominalis Sm., subsp. or var. between 
esuriens Sm. and mediopallidus Forel. : 
3. Camponotus rectangularis Em., var. rubroniger Forel. 
