. An introduction to zoology, with directions for practical work (invertebrates). . XXVI INSECTA: HYMENOPTERA 425 they form an undergrourid nest with many large well-venti- lated chambers. Then they sally forth and begin to cut large pieces out of the leaves of adjacent trees, carrying these back to the nest, where they ^ are cut up into small pieces, making a loose spongy mass. This is then made to adhere either to the roof or the floor of the chambers, different species of ants having different customs in this matter. The whole mass is soon held together by the white threads (hyphae) of a fu
. An introduction to zoology, with directions for practical work (invertebrates). . XXVI INSECTA: HYMENOPTERA 425 they form an undergrourid nest with many large well-venti- lated chambers. Then they sally forth and begin to cut large pieces out of the leaves of adjacent trees, carrying these back to the nest, where they ^ are cut up into small pieces, making a loose spongy mass. This is then made to adhere either to the roof or the floor of the chambers, different species of ants having different customs in this matter. The whole mass is soon held together by the white threads (hyphae) of a fungus which develops rapidly in ,„ 1 f 1 fi i- ^1, 1, 1, Fig. 319.—Five Chambers the leaf pulp ; after a time the hyphae f„^ t^e nest of a Leaf. produce at their tips small white cutting Ant in which bodies. It is for the sake of these, ap- ^'^^ '^'^^^^ f'^^s^s is parently, that the fungus is cultivated, flftlr ;"^ for they form the only, or at any rate the chief food of the ants; moreover, it is apparently only when tended by the ants that these little white heads are formed. As soon as the fungus is well developed in the spongy masses, the larvae are distributed throughout it and are fed on it. The way in which these fungus-gardens originate in new colonies has recently been brought to light.^ It has been shown that the young queen, when she goes out for her marriage flight, has always in her infra-buccal pocket (see p, 411) a little pellet of the fungal food, and that when she founds her new colony she ejects this pellet, and with it starts her vegetable garden the day after she enters the earth. On the third day she lays her eggs, and for the next five or six weeks she divides her time between egg-laying, cleaning and nursing the little grubs that hatch out, feeding them on other eggs, and tending her kitchen-garden, apparently watering and manuring the fungUs vfiih secretions from her own body. By the time the first batch of workers appears, the f
Size: 1476px × 1692px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1913
