340 Tenants of an old farm. 



ruler, provideth her meat in the ;<uminer. and iiatlieretli 

 her food iu the harvest." 



" Very good ; turn again to the thirtietli chapter 

 of Proverlx^, and read the 24th and 25th verses." 



The sound of lluttering leaves once more illled the 

 liouse, and then the school read these words : 



" There be four thhigs which are little upon the 

 earth, but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a 

 people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in sum- 

 mer." 



"You thus see," I resumed, "that the wise man 

 who wrote the Proverbs believed that the ants of 

 Palestine had a habit of storing up seeds of grain dur- 

 ing the harvest time. Xo one appears to have disputed 

 this until about one hundred years ago, when an Eng- 

 lish naturalist, Mr. Gould, who was also a clergyman, 

 discovered tliat the ants of his country were not har- 

 vesters. Otlier naturalists came to the same conclu- 

 sion about the ants of other parts of Europe, and by- 

 and-by it came to be the prevailing opinion among 

 scientific people that no harvesting-ants existed. They 

 said that Solomon, Yirgil, Homer, and all the ancient 

 writers who spoke of such insects, wei'e in error ; in 

 fact had mistaken the eggs or cocoons that ants are 

 often seen carrying, for grains of wheat, which they 

 somewhat resemble." 



"Well, in the course of time, a gentleman living iu 

 Texas wrote up to our Philadelphia Academy of Sciences 

 that there was a harvesting-ant in that State ! The 

 account was not generally believed among naturalists. 



