PACKAKu] THE SOCIAL LIFE OF INSECTS. 335 



wheat sunning. I wanted to see how the}' would manage to 

 get so much back again, and returned again tliat evening 

 just in time to see tlieir hosts come out and carry it in in 

 five minutes." 



But Mr. Moggridge, the autlior of tliat entertaining book, 

 "Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders," lias quite dis- 

 pelled whatever doubts have arisen in the minds of modern 

 naturalists respecting the frugal, i)rovidcnt habits of certain 

 ants, fulh' proving the accuracy of Solomon's words, "Go 

 to the ant, thou sluggard : consider her ways and be wise ; 

 which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat 

 in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." 

 Again : "The ants are a i)eople not strong, yet they prepare 

 their meat in the summer." Our author also (juotes Hesiod, 

 Horace and Virgil as rcl'erring to this habit of the ants. 

 But il'21ian, who lived in the time of Hadrian, supplies full 

 details. Moggridge quotes him as follows: "In summer 

 time, after harvest, while the ears are being threshed, the 

 ants pry about in troops around the threshing floors, leaving 

 their homes and going singly, in pairs, or sometimes three 

 together. They then select grains of wheat or barley, and 

 go straight home by the way they came. Some go to collect, 

 others to carry away the burden, and they avoid the way for 

 one another with groat politeness and consideration, espe- 

 cially the unburdened for tlie weight 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 olf 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 sliouhl sprout, as the^' would do if left 

 entire, and thus the ants should come to want. So we sec 

 that the ants have good share in the gifts of nature, in this 

 res|)ect as well as others." 



Northern observers have denied that ants lay up seeds. 



IT) 



