8 HARVESTING ANTS. 



carriers. Now these excellent creatures, when they 

 have returned home, and stored their granaries with 

 wheat and barley, bore through each grain of seed in 

 the middle ; that which falls off in the process becomes 

 a meal for the ants, and the remainder is unfertile. 

 This these worthy housekeepers do, lest when the 

 rains come the seeds should sprout, as they would 

 do if left entire, and thus the ants should come to 

 want. So we see that the ants have good share in 

 the gifts of nature, in this respect as well as others." 

 Further on* he gives a very interesting account of 

 their mode of collecting and preparing the grain, 

 many details of which I can myself substantiate from 

 personal observation, though I have never seen ants 

 actually at work upon the ears of corn. "But when 

 the ants start a foraging, they follow the biggest, who 

 take the lead as generals. And when they come to 

 the crops, the younger ones stand under the stalk, 

 but the leaders ascending gnaw through the culms, 

 as they are called [ovpayovq, " the stalk ends on which 

 the ears grow " (Lid. and Scott, Gr. Lex.), probably 

 meaning that they detach the separate spikelets of 

 which the ears are composed], of the ears [Kapiri/nwv], 

 which they throw to the people below. These busy 

 themselves with cutting away the chaff and peeling 

 off the envelopes which contain and cover the grain. 

 So the ants, though they need no threshing time, nor 

 men to winnow for them, nor an artificial draught of 

 wind to separate corn and chaff, yet have the food of 

 men who both plough and sow for it." ^Elian appears 

 also to have heard reports of the habits of ants in 



• Lilian, De Nat. Anim., lib. vi. chap, xliii. 



