WOOD-ANTS. 273 



as building materials, and not for food as was be- 

 lieved by the ancients. There are wonders enough 

 observable in the economy of ants, without having 

 recourse to fancy — wonders which made Aristotle 

 extol the sagacity of bloodless animals, and Cicero 

 ascribe to them not only sensation, but mind, reason, 

 and memory.* JElian, however, describes, as if he 

 had actually witnessed it, the ants ascending a stalk 

 of growing corn, and throwing down *' the ears 

 which they bit off to their companions below," {reo 

 ^vif^u ra icoLia). Aldrovandus assures us that he 

 had seen their granaries; and others pretend that 

 they shrewdly bite off the ends of the grain to pre- 

 vent it from germinating. t These are fables which 

 accurate observation has satisfactorily contradicted. 



But these errors, as it frequently happens, have 

 contributed to a more perfect knowledge of the insects 

 than we might otherwise have obtained; for it was 

 the wish to prove or disprove the circumstance of 

 their storing up and feeding upon grain, which led 

 Gould to make his observations on English ants; as 

 the notion of insects being produced from, putrid 

 carcases had before led Redi to his ingenious experi- 

 ments on their generation. Yet, although it is more 

 than eighty years since Gould's book was published, 

 we find the error still repeated in very respectable 

 publications. J 



The coping which we above described as forming 

 the exterior of the wood-ant's nest, is only a small 

 portion of the structure, which consists of a great 

 number of interior chambers and galleries, with fun- 

 nel-shaped avenues leading to them. The coping, 



*In formica non modo sensus, sed etiam mens, ratio, memoria. 

 + Aldrovandus de Formicis, and Jonston, Thaumaturg. Nat. 

 p. 356. 

 \ See Professor Paxton's Illustr. of Scripture, i. 307, 



