APPENDIX.

What an attic-room is to the thrifty housewife, an appendix is to the maker of a book. Some things that do not seem to be in place in the parlor or chamber are yet useful, and altogether too good to be thrown away, so they are put into the garret to await the expected use. In a book there are matters that the writer thinks ought to interest some reader, things that will be missed if they are not under the same roof,—I mean between the covers of the volume in hand,—and yet the skill is wanting to incorporate these odd pieces (of furniture, if you wish) in the orderly chapters of the book. And so I give you here several long notes and some longer lists.

A LIST OF COMMON CABINET WOODS, DYE-WOODS, AND TIMBER.

LEAF-CUTTING ANTS.

The Œcodoma, Zompopos, or leaf-cutting ants, are such a pest to the fruit-growers of Central America that I have quoted from Mr. Belt the most satisfactory account of their habits that has ever been published. He says:—

“The first acquaintance a stranger generally makes with them is on encountering their paths on the outskirts of the forest crowded with the ants,—one lot carrying off the pieces of leaves, each piece about the size of a sixpence and held up vertically between the jaws of the ant, another lot hurrying along in an opposite direction empty handed, but eager to get loaded with their leafy burdens. If he follows 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.

“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 persistently 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 outskirts 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 diameter, 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....