THE LEAF-CUTTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE LEAF-CUTTERS.

(By M. G. DOKEHTLL.) Oh it was hot! but, at last, we ant& had stripped the orange trees of leaves and. struggled homewards in lengthy columns, each of us bearing a cut-out piece of leaf the size of a sixpence, which we carried like' umbrellas over our heads; though it was not as sunshades we had gathered them, but as material for our mushroom beds. Did you know that ants could grow mushrooms? Of course most ants cannot, but my family is especially clever. It dwells in the great tropical forests of *Brazil. Here insect life teems in marvellous shapes and forms, and there are ants of all kinds, in their thousands. But of them all, we, the leaf-cutters, are the most famous, and no wonder. In rounded chambers in the interiors of our nests lie our mushroom beds. These are composed of heaps of small pieces of leaf which we have laborionely gathered. When they wither they become covered with fungus threads upon which grow our minute white mushrooms. We live aud feed our young entirely on these. The mushrooms are not easy to grow and they cause us much trouble and labour. The temperature and moisture of the beds have to be kept just right. For this purpose we have holes leading from the chamber to the surface which we can open or close as is needed. But I will get on with my story. As I was saying, having stripped the tree of leaves we struggled homewards. Our nest lay within the depths of the nearby forest "so we had to leave the orange groves and make for this. And what a , weary march it was, for the sun was getting high and we do not like to work in the heat of the day. Small wonder if some of us grumbled at the distance we had come for our spoil. But the truth of the matter was that we had discovered that the leaves of these cultivated trees made far better mushroom beds, than many of the coarser native trees. We had not long realised the existence of these orange groves, but having, found them, we determined to make the best of the delicate, cultured trees,, although it gave us much labour to reach them. As it was, when at last we neared the colony, most of us were feeling both tired"and cross. Then we discovered that the leaves had become too dry to take straight into the nest; so we decided to leave them outside until nightfall when they would get moister. Now we are divided into two distinct classes, the workers major and the workers minor. The latter, to which I belong, do all the work of the colony. The workers major arc huge, hefty fellows with enormous heads and jaws. They live a life of ease and rarely leave the'nest. They are the soldiers, the defenders of our colony. One or two of these were lolling outside " the entrance as we struggled up with our burdens. "I shouldn't leave those leaves outside," advised one, "it's going to rain." "Let it,'T snapped. "A shower won't hurt them." "It won't be a shower," said the soldier, "the air is heavy and it is going to rain and rain and all your leaves will be beaten into the ground and become wasted." However, we took no notice, for what was the good of listening to everything the idle creatures said. They seemed to think that they knew everything. But it did rain nevertheless, that very afternoon, and continued so long that tuo haves, after all our strenuous labour, had to be abandoned as worthless.

Such a thing lias happened before, and such tilings will happen again, and it is no use crying about them. So, as soon as the weather cleared, we set out once more for the orange- groves. Everything was delightfully fresh after the rain. We felt full of energy, and worked stenuously, making many expeditions and stripping the young trees right and left. And the path we travelled, from an indistinct track, became a roadway, a broad highway leading from our colony to the orange groves, and made by the continual tramping of our many thousands of feet. Then one day a puzzling and terrible thing happened. As I ran out of the nest I found two big lumps blocking the path. I was puzzled at first and then realised that they were feet with boots on. Out of the boots grew legs, great long legs, and on the end of them was a body. The body had a waving arm coming from each side, and a little dot of a head perched on top. It was a man. I climbed on to the boot and bit hard, for I sensed danger in this man. But the leather of this boot was so thick that he could not have felt me. Anyway lie did not wince and took a step forward. I felt alarmed. Where were our soldiers, great hulking crpatures, always giving advice, but never there "when they were wanted? Ah, here was one and here another. Out they stalked from the tunnelled passage, looking dreadfully fierce. Splendid fellows! I loved them then. One crawled up the man's leg aiid bit him in a tender spot, for' I saw him start with the pain; then I ran into the shelter of the nest and left them to it. But, as to what happened after this, I am rather confused. The man braved the onslaught of our soldiers and came fearlessly up to our nest; and the next moment had poured the most offensive of mixtures down our tunnels, choking, stifling and drowning us. It was a dreadful experience as you may imagine. Fortunately for me I was near an entrance hole, and managed to struggle out gasping for fresh air. But hundreds and thousands of us were trapped in the nest and choked. In a. brace of shakes our colony had been wiped from existence. I lived in a daze for a long time, stunned by the awful calamity. But after a while I discovered I was not the only one alive. There were quite a number of lucky ones, who had been outside and escaped the awful death. But. of course we could not go on living iti the old home, after what had happened, and we decided to form a fresh nest. Then I had a brilliant idea. We would make the new colony near the orange groves, then we would not have so far to carry our leaves. And this is what we did, but it will be a long while before we recover our former strength. In the meanwhile we watch our enemy, man, at work among the fruit trees. Apparently he likes oranges, too. I hope he will let us alone in future, for really, I can't see why he should want to attack us even if we do both like the same thing.