HORTICULTURISTS 215 



with gleaning : it ascends the stalks and gathers 

 the rice grain by grain. 



Above their nest these Agricultural Ants clear a 

 space ten or twelve feet in diameter, and from this 

 clearing several broad roads radiate into the dense 

 herbage to a distance of fifty or sixty feet. Dr. 

 Lincecum mentions one such road that ran straight 

 and smooth for three hundred feet. When one 

 considers the relative proportions of the road and 

 the road-maker, this is an enormous undertaking. 

 Should a weed dare to peep through the surface of 

 one of these roads it is immediately bitten off. 

 There are always streams of vigilant ants coming 

 and going along these thoroughfares, and the traffic 

 serves to smooth and harden them. For the busy 

 creatures are always bringing home supplies of 

 food, and it appears to be the facilitation of this 

 traffic that causes the roads to be made. 



These ants appear to take note of the special 

 circumstances of the land they have selected for a 

 settlement. If the ground is ordinarily dry the 

 entrance to the nest is a mere hole in the centre 

 of a gently swelling mound, but if subject to occa- 

 sional inundation the entrance will be elevated 

 into a steep cone, sometimes as much as from 

 twenty inches to three feet high with the opening 

 at the summit. 



It is a moot point whether Solomon — had he 

 known of the existence and the ways of these 

 American agriculturists — would have felt that he 

 could hold them up as patterns to the idle ; for 



