34 
rOPULAIi SCIENCE REVIEW. 
dozens of Gecropia trees, and never could find one that was not 
tenanted by ants. I noticed three different species, all, as far 
as I know, confined to the Cecropia , and all farming scale- 
insects. . . . There is never more than one species of ant in 
the same tree.” 
A shrub of another order of plants wds described by Aublet, 
in the work already mentioned, as affording a home for ants. 
This is the Grentianaceous genus Tachicc , a name which Schre- 
ber changed to Myrmecict , although this latter is discarded by 
all writers, for the older one, in accordance with the laws of 
botanical nomenclature. “The trunk and branches,” says 
Aublet, “which are hollow, serve as a retreat for the ants ; it is 
on this account that this shrub is named by the Gralipis Tachi, 
which in their language signifies ants’ nest.” It is worthy of 
note that from the axils of the leaves, when a flower is not 
produced, there exudes a drop of transparent yellow resin : it is 
probable that this is employed in some way by the ants, as we 
shall see to be the case with an excretion of the Acacia which 
they inhabit. An orchid, Schomburglcia tibicinis , a native of 
Honduras, is also ant-tenanted. The long hollow pseudo-bulbs 
have a small hole at their base through which the ants enter ; and 
so thoroughly take possession of the plant, that Mr. Skinner, who 
discovered it, was almost prevented from collecting specimens 
by the stings of the swarms which rushed out upon him when 
he touched it. It is probably to some orchidaceous plant that 
Mr. Bates refers when he says that the formicarium of the 
Brazilian Crematogaster limatus is “in perforated glandular 
swellings in the suspended air-roots of a parasitic plant.” M. 
Beccari, in Professor Caruel’s previously quoted paper, says : 
44 T have observed a species of Clerodendron which grows at 
Savannah which has the upper internodes swollen, the centre 
being hollow, and furnished with an aperture through which 
the ants go in and out.” In the South American section Phy- 
soclada , of the Boraginaceous genus Gordia , the branches are 
swollen at the bases of the petioles of the upper leaves : these 
swellings are hollow, and in G. nodosa (and probably in the 
other species of the section) are tenanted by ants, whence it is 
called by the natives of Para Pao de Formige. 
In certain species of the genus Acacia the stipules are con- 
verted into large thoins, which are broad and hollow at the 
base. These species were formerly grouped together under the 
name of A. (or Mimosa ) cornigcra , and have long been known 
to shelter ants. Thus Martyn, in his edition of Miller’s 
44 Hardeners’ Dictionary,” says : 44 The spines are subaxillary and 
connate at the base, resembling the horns of oxen ; they are 
brown, shining, hollow, and the longest are more than five 
inches in length ; they are all over the tree, and when the pods 
