4S HARVESTING ANTS. 



Under ordinary circumstances the hard shell of the 

 hemp-seed, and the coats of most other small fruits, 

 grain, and seeds, would prevent the ants from getting 

 at the contents while dry, but in the earliest stage of 

 sprouting the shell parts of itself, allowing the radicle 

 to protrude, and then they find their opportunity. (See 

 Figs. A, A 2, Plate VI., p. 35.) 



It has always been siipposed that ants, from the 

 delicate nature of their mouth organs, were only able 

 to lap up liquids or to swallow very soft animal tissues, 

 and one of the great difficulties in the way of admit- 

 ting that they might collect seeds for food, lay in the 

 apparent impossibility of their eating such hard sub- 

 stances. But it has generally been overlooked that 

 not only are all seeds soft when moistened with water 

 and ready to grow, but also that there are certain 

 kinds of seeds the contents of which are naturally 

 soft. 



The most important organs in an ant's mouth are 

 shown in Fig. D 2, and D 3, in Plate I., p. 21 . D 3 re- 

 presents one of the horny, toothed mandibles, which 

 serve admirably for scraping off particles of flour from 

 the seeds. Within these are the parts shown at D 2, 

 where the outermost pieces are the maxillae and their 

 four-jointed palpi or feelers, and the innermost piece 

 the labium and its three-jointed palpi, between which 

 the end of the delicate membranous tongue appears. 



I repeatedly placed leaves from the orange trees 

 covered with cocci and aphides from rose-bushes and 

 pine trees, all of which are eagerly sought by several 

 other kinds of ants, in the captive nest, but the ants 

 never looked twice at them, and this corresponds with 

 the fact that I have never seen either strudor or 



