HARVESTISG ANTS. 13 



to maintain a clean crop of tins plant around its nest, 

 suffering no weed to appear among it, and harvesting 

 the crop in its proper season. 



The Sauba ant {(Ecodoma cephalotcs) has been seen 

 by Mr. Bates plundering baskets containing mandioca 

 meal (an impure form of tapioca) in Brazil, and this in 

 so wholesale a manner as shortlj^ to threaten the loss 

 of the entire supply ; and Dr. Delacoux records * 

 the presence in New Granada of a monstrous ant, called 

 by the natives Arieros, a word which, I am informed, 

 is of Arabic extraction, and means the carrier, which 

 emptied an entire sack of maize belonging to him in 

 a single night. 



It seems strange that while travellers have reported 

 the seed-storing habits of ants in far distant countries, 

 our naturalists at home should have not only remained 

 unaware of its existence inEurope, but even strenuously 

 denied it. It is certain, however, that naturalists and 

 others in southern Europe are more or less aware of the 

 fact, but I have been unaljle to learn that any accurate 

 account of the habits of harvesting ants has hitherto 

 been published, or that any one has taken pains to 

 discover what becomes of the seed so laboriously 

 obtained. 



It is true that in the Enciclopedia PopoIare\ extracts 

 are given from the remarks made by M. Genej on 

 the subject, in which he assumes that the fact that 

 ants collect and carry to their nest large supplies of 

 grain and seed is well known, but states that he is at 



* Notice sur les Mceurs et les Habitudes de quelques Especes de Formi- 

 ciens des Climats Cliauds. Eev. Zool., Mai, 1848, p. 1849. 



+ Article Formica, vol. v. p. 143-4. (Turin, 1845). 



% Memorie per servire alia Storia Naturale di alcuni imenotteri, iniLlislied 

 at Modena, in 1842. 



