Identifier: marvelsofinsectl00steps (find matches)
Title: Marvels of insect life ; a popular account of structure and habit
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Step, Edward, 1855-1931
Subjects: Insects Animal behavior
Publisher: New York : R. M. McBride
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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he ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried 1 Atta cephalotes. Fungus Chambers in Termites Nest. The termites ( white ants ) are also among the cultivators of mushrooms. The drawingrepresents a spongy mass of part of the nest, hollowed and excavated into chambers andpassages, from which minute white mushrooms grow in abundance. Insect Mushroom-Growers. 29 off by another relay of workers ; but, generally, each marches off with the pieceit has operated upon, and as all take the same road to their colony, the path theyfollow becomes in a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression ofa cartwheel through the herbage. Bates had not been able to discover for what purj)ose the leaf-cutterswent to all this trouble. He thought he had found the reason, and supposedthe leaves were gathered for thatching the entrances to their undergroundcities. In this surmise, however, he was wrong, as Belt and Fritz Miillerhave shown. The leaves are taken down and packed in underground
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Mushroom-growing Ants. i_By 1 heo. Carrcras. The leaf-cutting sauba ants of South and Central America ascend trees in great numbers and frequently strip them of their leaves.These are cut up into small fragments and packed into special chambers, where they ferment and in time produce a crop of smallmushrooms. The ants are here shown returning laden after stripping a tree. chambers, where they ferment and decay, forming a sort of leaf-mould inwhich the ants grow mushrooms ! But why ? The saiiba or leaf-cutter is amycophagist ! It might be argued that there is no reason wli\- the ants shoulddo this, as there are i)l(nt\- of naturally-grown fungi in the forests uponwhich they could feed, without going to the trouble of gathering leaves andpreparing their own mushroom beds from tluiii. True, but the naturally-grown mushrooms are seasonal, and their appearance is modified by fluctuationsof temperature and humidity. The human mushroom-cultiwator has discoveredthat, by preparing suitable bed

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