HARVESTING ANTS. ? 



T' invade the corn, and to their cells convey 

 The plundered forage of their yellow prey. 

 The sable troops, along the narrow tracks, 

 Scarce bear the weighty burden on their backs ; 

 Some set their shoulders to the ponderous grain ; 

 Some guard the spoil ; some la?h the lagging train ; 

 AU ply their several tasks, and equal toil sustain." 



Indeed, it would seem that among the people in- 

 habiting the shores of the Mediterranean it was 

 almost as common to say " as provident as an ant 

 as it is with us to say " as busy as a bee." Plautus* 

 introduces a slave who, when attempting to account 

 for the rapid disappearance of a sum of money of 

 which he had charge, says, 



" Confit cito 

 Quam si tu objicias formicis papaverem." 



" It vanished in a twinkling, 

 Just like poppy seed thrown to the ants. ' ' 



Any one who has seen the eagerness with which 

 certain southern ants seize upon seeds thrown in their 

 path will appreciate the correctness of this simile. 



Claudius Ji^lianus, who lived in the time of Hadrian, 

 gives a detailed account of the habits which he attri- 

 butes to ants,t from which the following is a transla- 

 tion : " In summer time, after harvest, while the ears 

 are being threshed the ants pry about in troops around 

 the threshing floors, leaving their homes, and going 

 singly, in pairs, or sometimes three together. They 

 then select grains of wheat or barley, and go straight 

 home by the way they came. Some go to collect, 

 others to carry away the burden, and they avoid the 

 way for one another with great politeness and consi- 

 deration, especially the unburdened for the weight 



* Trinummus, Act ii. sc. 4, 1. 7. 

 f ,^ian, De Natura Animalium, ii. 25. 



