HA R VESTING A NTS. 55 



again. It is in this condition that the ants like best 

 to eat them, as I have proved by experiments among 

 my captives. 



As the ants often travel some distance from their 

 nest in search of food, they may certainly be said to 

 be, in a limited sense, agents in the dispersal of seeds, 

 for they not unfrequently drop seeds by the way, 

 wliicli they fail to find again, and also among the 

 refuse matter which forms the kitchen midden in 

 front of their entrances, a few sound seeds are often 

 present, and these in many instances grow up and 

 form a little colony of stranger plants. This presence 

 of seedlings foreign to the wild ground in which the 

 nest is usually placed, is quite a feature where there 

 are old established colonies oi Atta barbara, as is shown 

 at Fig. A in Plate 1., p. 21, where young plants of 

 fumitory, chickweed, cranesbill, Arabis ThaUana, &c., 

 may be seen on or near the rubbish heap. 



It would be interesting to make a list of all these 

 ant-imported plants, and I think it quite likely that, 

 if a sufficiently large number of nests were visited, 

 some seedlings of cultivated species might be found 

 amongst them, for we have seen that garden plants 

 are frequently put under contribution. 



One can imagine cases in which the ants during the 

 lapse of long periods of time might pass the seeds of 

 plants from colony to colony, until alter a journey of 

 many stages, the descendants of the ant-borne seedlings 

 might find themselves transported to places far removed 

 from the original home of their immediate ancestors. It 

 is a true cause, but at the same time it may be one which 

 has, like many true causes, exceedingly small effects. 

 One can scarcely look at the teeming population of an 



