Green ants do disfigure orange and mango trees with their “nests,” and they have the temper of furies; but they wage war on many of the insects which bother plants, and clear away insect carrion, and carrion, in fact, of all sorts.  This ant, to which has been given the official title of “emerald-coloured leaf dweller,” constructs a pocket with leaves of living trees (and, very rarely, of the blades of living grass), and dwelling therein establishes populous colonies.  The queen or mother ant sets up her separate establishment by curling a small leaf or the corner of a large one, joining the edges with a white cottony fabric, and forthwith begins to raise a family.  She is a portly creature—­unlike her slim, semi-transparent workers and warriors—­and most prolific, and her family increases marvellously.  As it multiplies, ingenious additions of living leaves are made to the pocket or purse, until it may assume the size of a football and be the home of millions of alert, pugnacious, inquisitive, foraging insects, whose bites are dreaded by individuals whose skin is extra sensitive.

Is it not astonishing that insects, possessing even in combination such trivial muscular power as the green tree-ant, should be able to cause leaves 12 inches long by 8 inches wide to curl up so that the apex shall almost touch the base, or that the parallel borders shall be brought together with the nicest apposition?  The astonishment increases when it is recognised that at the founding of a colony there are but few workers to co-operate in the undertaking.

The minute caterpillar of a certain species of moth mines leaves, and eating away the cellular structures, causes them to twist irregularly, and eventually spins on the spot a cocoon of green silk in which it undergoes metamorphosis.  A local caterpillar, too, converts the tough harsh leaves of a fig-tree (ficus FASCICULATA) into a close and perfect scroll by an elaborate system of haulage, spinning silken strands as required, having primarily rendered the leaf the more easy to manipulate by nibbling away a portion of the midrib.  In this scroll the insect dozes until in process of time it is transformed, and emerges a bright but short-lived butterfly.

But, as far as my personal observation goes, the green tree-ants do not effect any alteration in the superficial appearance nor destroy the structure of leaves, nor employ any physical power at the first stages of the construction of a habitation.  The process by which a leaf is curled extends over several days, and but few take part in it.  Half a dozen ants may be seen perpetually engaged in, apparently, an unmethodical but extremely minute and critical inspection of the rhachis and the nerves or ribs of the leaf.  Days pass.  The ants are there all the time, examining the leaf and communicating with each other whensoever they meet.  Imperceptibly the leaf begins to curl.  The ants continue to make mesmeric passes over the nerves with ever-waving antennae.