soon, however, as the first rains set in, the trees throw out numerous vigorous shoots, and the ants multiply again with astonishing rapidity.

Both in Brazil and Nicaragua I paid much attention to the relation between the presence of honey-secreting glands on plants, and the protection the latter secured by the attendance of ants attracted by the honey. I found many plants so protected; the glands being specially developed on the young leaves, and on the sepals of the flowers. Besides the bull's-horn acacias, I, however, only met with two other genera of plants that furnished the ants with houses, namely, the Cecropia and some of the Melastoma; but I have no doubt that there are many others. The stem of the Cecropia, or trumpet-tree, is hollow, and divided into cells by partitions that extend across the interior of the hollow trunk. The ants gain access by making a hole from the outside, and then burrow through the partitions, thus getting the run of the whole stem. They do not obtain their food directly from the tree, but keep brown scale-insects (Coccida) in the cells, which suck the juices from the tree, and secrete a honey-like fluid that exudes from a pore on the back, and is lapped up by the ants. In one cell eggs will be found, in another grubs, and in a third pupæ, all lying loosely. In another cell, by itself, a queen ant will be found, surrounded by walls made of a brown waxy-looking substance, along with about a dozen coccide to supply her with food. I suppose the eggs are removed as soon as laid, for I never found any along with the queen-ant. If the tree be shaken, the ants rush out in myriads, and search about for the molester.

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Ch. XII.]

MELASTOMÆ AND THEIR ANTS.

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This case is not like the last one, where the tree has provided food and shelter for the ants, but rather one where the ant has taken possession of the tree, and brought with it the coccide; but I believe that its presence must be beneficial. I have cut into some dozens of the cecropia 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 cecropice, and all farming scale-insects. As in the bull's-horn thorn, there is never more than one species of ant on the same tree. In some species of Melastoma there is a direct provision of houses for the ants. In each leaf, at the base of

the laminæ, the petiole, or stalk, is furnished with a couple of pouches, divided from each other by the midrib, as shown in the figure. Into each of these pouches there is an entrance from the lower side of the leaf. I

noticed them first in Northern Brazil, in the province of Maranham; and afterwards at Pará. Every pouch was occupied by a nest of small black ants; and if the leaf was shaken ever so little, they would rush out and scour all over it in search of the aggressor. I must have tested some hundreds of leaves, and never shook one without the ants coming out, excepting one sickly-looking plant at Pará. In many of the pouches I noticed the eggs and young ants, and in some I saw a few dark-coloured coccidæ or aphides; but my attention had not been at that time directed to the latter as supplying the ants with food, and I did not examine a sufficient number of pouches to determine whether they were constant occupants of the nests or not; but my experience since with the cecropia trees would lead me to expect that they were. If so, we have an instance of two insects and a plant living together, and all benefited by the companionship. The leaves of the plant are guarded by the ants; the ants are provided with houses by the plant, and food by the coccidæ or aphides; and the latter are effectually protected by the ants in their common habitation.

Amongst the numerous plants that do not provide houses, but attract ants to their leaves and flower-buds by means of glands secreting a honey-like liquid, are many epiphytal orchids, and I think all the species of Passiflora. I had the common red passion-flower growing over the front of my verandah, where it was continually under my notice. It had honey-secreting glands on its young leaves and on the sepals of the flower-buds. For two years I noticed that the glands were constantly attended by a small ant (Pheidole), and, night and day,

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Ch. XII.] USE OF HONEY-SECRETING GLANDS.

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every young leaf and every flower-bud had a few on them. They did not sting, but attacked and bit my finger when I touched the plant. I have no doubt that the primary object of these honey-glands was to attract the ants, and keep them about the most tender and vulnerable parts of the plant, to prevent them being injured; and I further believe that one of the principal enemies that they serve to guard against in tropical America is the leaf-cutting ant, as I have noticed that the latter are very much afraid of the small black ants.

On the third year after I had noticed the attendance of the ants on my passion-flower, I found that the glands were not so well looked after as before, and soon discovered that a number of scale-insects had established themselves on the stems, and that the ants had in a great measure transferred their attentions to them. An ant would stand over a scale-insect and stroke it alternately on each side with its antennæ, whereupon every now and then a clear drop of honey would exude from a pore on the back of the scale-insect and be imbibed by the ant. Here it was clear that the scale-insect was competing successfully with the leaves and sepals for the attendance and protection of the ants, and was successful either through the fluid it furnished being more attractive or more abundant. I have, from these facts, been led to the conclusion that the use of honey-secreting glands in plants is to attract insects that will protect the flower-buds and leaves from being injured by herbivorous insects and mammals; but I do not mean to infer that this is the use of all glands, for many of the small appendicular bodies, called "glands" by botanists, do not secrete honey. The common dog-rose of England is fur

nished with glands on the stipules, and in other species they are more numerous, until in the wild Rosa villosa of the northern counties the leaves are thickly edged, and the fruit and sepals covered with stalked glands. I have only observed the wild roses in the north of England, but there I have never seen insects attending the glands. These glands, however, do not secrete honey; but a dark, resinous, sticky liquid, that probably is useful by being distasteful to both insects and mammals.

If the facts I have described are sufficient to show that some plants are benefited by supplying ants with honey from glands on their leaves and flower-buds, I shall not have much difficulty in proving that many plant-lice, scale-insects, and leaf-hoppers, that also attract ants by furnishing them with honey-like food, are similarly benefited. The aphides are the principal ant-cows of Europe. In the tropics their place is taken in a great measure by species of coccidæ and genera of Homoptera, such as Membracis and its allies. My pine-apples were greatly subject to the attacks of a small, soft-bodied, brown coccus, that was always guarded by a little, black, stinging ant (Solenopsis). This ant took great care of the scale-insects, and attacked savagely anyone interfering with them, as I often found to my cost, when trying to clear my pines, by being stung severely by them. Not content with watching over their cattle, the ants brought up grains of damp earth, and built domed galleries over them, in which, under the vigilant guard of their savage little attendants, the scaleinsects must, I think, have been secure from the attacks of all enemies.

Many of the leaf-hoppers-species, I think, of Mem