414 
APPENDIX. 
lows this last division, it will lead him to some young trees or shrubs, 
up which the ants mount, and where each one, stationing itself on the 
edge of a leaf, commences to make a circular cut with its scissor-like 
jaws from the edge, its hinder feet being the centre on which it turns. 
When the piece is nearly cut off, it is still stationed upon it, and it 
looks as though it would fall to the ground with it; but on being 
finally detached, the ant is generally found to have hold of the leaf 
with one foot, and soon righting itself, and arranging its burden to 
its satisfaction, it sets off at once on its return. Following it again, 
it is seen to join a throng of others, each laden like itself, and without 
a moment’s delay it hurries along the well-worn path. As it proceeds, 
other paths, each thronged with busy workers, come in from the sides, 
until the main road often gets to be seven or eight inches broad, and 
more thronged than the streets of the city of London. 
u After travelling for some hundreds of yards, often for more than 
half a mile, the formicarium is reached. It consists of low wide 
mounds of brown clayey-looking earth, above and immediately around 
which the bushes have been killed by their buds and leaves having 
been persistent^ bitten off as they attempted to grow after their first 
defoliation. Under high trees in the thick forest the ants do not make 
their nests, because, I believe, the ventilation of their underground 
galleries, about which they are very particular, would be interfered 
with, and perhaps to avoid the drip from the trees. It is on the out¬ 
skirts of the forest, or around clearings or near wide roads that let in 
the sun, that these formicariums are generally found. Numerous round 
tunnels, varying from half an inch to seven or eight inches in diam¬ 
eter, lead down through the mounds of earth; and many more from 
some distance around also lead underneath them. At some of the 
holes on the mounds ants will be seen busily at work bringing up 
little pellets of earth from below and casting them down on the 
ever-increasing mounds, so that its surface is nearly fresh and new- 
looking. . . . 
44 The ceaseless toiling hosts impress one with their power, and one 
asks, What forests can stand before such invaders? How is it that 
vegetation is not eaten off the face of the earth ? Surely nowhere but 
in the tropics, where the recuperative powers of Nature are immense 
and ever active, could such devastation be withstood. . . . None 
of the indigenous trees appear so suitable for them as the introduced 
ones. . . . 
44 In June, 1859, ver}^ soon after the formation of my garden, the 
leaf-cutting ants came down upon it, and at once commenced denud- 
