HARVESTING ANTS. 5 



However, just as the ancient writers, judging from 

 their own experience and from the reports of others, 

 had erred in attributing to ants in general the habit 

 of seed-storing possessed by certain species commonly 

 found in the south, so have modern naturalists fallen 

 into the mistake of denying it to any of the European 

 species. 



The older authors who lived in Greece and Italy, 

 and the mediseval authors who drew their information 

 in great measure from the former, being familiar 

 with the fact that some ants habitually collect large 

 supplies of seed, went so far as to assert, or to imply, 

 that all European ants do so; the authors of the 

 present day, on the other hand, generalizing too 

 freely from their experience of ants found near their 

 northern homes, maintained and maintain the very 



reverse. 



So long as Europe was taught natural history by 

 southern writers the belief prevailed ; but no sooner 



out of my hand into the paper hag made to receive them, a few were spiUed 

 on the ground. In a short time afterwards I was greatly surprised to see 

 some of these spilled seeds in motion, being carried by the common black 

 ant (Formica nig>a) into its nest. On seeing this I hastened to get some 

 more fresh violet seeds, and also a quantity of seeds taken from ant 3 

 granaries at Mentone, and scattered these where the other seeds had lam. 

 After watching for half an hour a few of the violet seeds were carried in, but 

 not one of the granary seeds was removed, though these were examined 

 with some curiosity. I repeated this experiment twice afterwards on a dis- 

 tinct colony of ants of the same kind and obtained exactly the same result. 

 I opened the nest of the former colony on the day after they had carried in 

 the seeds, but failed to find these or any stores of other seeds. 



I am incUued to think that the ants took these seeds believing them to be 

 larvffi of other ants which they might eat ; for fresh seeds of violet are not 

 very unlike the larva of certain ants, as, for example, those of Aita barbara, 

 ficrured at Plate I., Fig. E.. p. 21, the semi-transparent membranous appendage 

 partly concealing the seed and giving it a fleshy appearance. 



I think this the more likely because on two occasions the seeds which had 

 been carried into the nest were subsequently thrown out by the ants, which 

 had I believe discovered their mistake. 



