HARVESTING ANTS. 175 



tlie ants there have a habit of bringing out large 

 quantities of grain and seed and laying them in heaps 

 outside their nests at the commencement of the wet 

 season. Dr. King, the dire(^tor of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens at Calcutta, has told me that when in the 

 Gvvalior territory during the beginning of the rainy 

 season, he saw heaps of seeds, principally those of a 

 leguminous plant {Al^ssocarjjus), piled up round the 

 entrances to the ants' nests, and that it was precisely 

 at that time that flocks of a rock-grouse {Pterocles 

 exustus) first made their appearance. They fed freel}'' 

 upon the seeds, and Dr. King found the crops of 

 some of these birds, which he had shot, filled with 

 them. 



It is difficult to imagine why these Indian ants 

 should turn out from their nests the very seeds which 

 it had cost them so much labour to collect, and the 

 more so as we find that these seeds are devoured by 

 bu'ds. It seems just possible, however, that the ants, 

 remaining torpid during the rainy season, do not 

 require the seeds, and know that, under these cir- 

 cumstances, if left in the nest, they would sprout, 

 and choke up the galleries and granaries. Perhaps 

 also they may have learned that a certain number of 

 the ejected seeds will spring up and aiFord future 

 harvests within easy reach of the nest. 



All this, however, and especially the suggestion as 

 to the dormant condition of the ants during the rainy 

 season, might easily be proved or disproved by direct 

 observation ; and at present we have nothing but 

 mere speculation to go upon. 



It is curious to find that the native population in a 

 certain part of India pay a kind of tribute to the 



o2 



