58 HARYESTIXG ANTS. 



difficulties wliicli attend the preservation of the seed 

 in the granaries in the south would be greatly in- 

 creased in the wet climates of Northern Europe, and 

 there, moreover, the greater cold would render the 

 ants torpid almost throughout the winter, when food 

 would not be required. But the question is plainly 

 an open one. We may also ask why it is that only 

 a very few out of the many species of ants which 

 inhabit the shores of the Mediterranean should 

 possess this habit of collecting seeds, and differ so 

 widely in their manner of living, from their neigh- 

 bours ? 



If we wish to put ourselves in the way to answer 

 these queries, the first thing we should do would be 

 to examine and compare tlie structure of the digestive 

 organs and parts of the mouth in harvesters and non- 

 harvesters, with a view to seeing whether there may 

 not be some capital difference here. 



These observations demand some skill in dissection 

 and preparation, and in regretting that it has not 

 been in my power to make them, I can only hope 

 that some one more skilled than I am may undertake 

 the subject. 



It seems probable, that in warmer latitudes 

 there are many conditions which favour the rapid 

 increase of ants, so that a given tract of country 

 in Southern Europe, for example, must have on an 

 average more colonies to support than a similar 

 tract in the north, and that to meet this increase of 

 population, it has therefore become necessary for these 

 creatures to seek their subsistence from as many and 

 as dissimilar sources as possible. The fierce conflicts 

 over booty both between rival nests of the same and 



