154 rORMICID^ — ANTS. 



' When Ants make haste with all their eggs aload, 

 Forth of their holes to carry them abroad.' "^ 



In the Treasvrie of Avncient^and Moderne Times, it is 

 also asserted that " when Ants walk the thickest, and more 

 than in vsuall numbers, meeting together confusedly, it is a 

 manifest signe of raine.'" 



It is related of the celebrated Timour, that being once 

 forced to take shelter from his enemies j^n a ruined building, 

 he sat alone many hours ; and, desirous of diverting his mind 

 from his hopeless condition, at length fixed his observation 

 upon an Ant which was carrying a grain of corn (probably 

 a pupa) larger than itself, up a high wall. Numbering the 

 efforts it made to accomplish this object, he found that the 

 grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground ; but the seventieth 

 time it reached the top of the wall. " This sight," said 

 Timour, " gave me courage at the moment, and I have never 

 forgotten the lesson it conveyed."^ 



Plutarch, in his comparison between land and water crea- 

 tures, narrates the following anecdote : " Gleanthus the 

 Philosopher, although he maintaineth not that beasts have 

 any use of reason, made report nevertheless that he was 

 present at the sight of such a spectacle and occurrent as 

 this. There were (quoth he) a number of Ants which went 

 toward another Ant's hole, that was not their own, carrying 

 with them the corp;e of a dead Ant ; out of which hole , 

 there came certain other Ants to meet them on the way (as 

 it were) to pari with them, and within a while returned back 

 and went down again; after this they came forth a second, 

 yea a third time, and retired accordingly until in the end 

 they brought up from beneath (as it were a ransom for the 

 dead body) a grub or little worm; which the others received 

 and took upon their shoulders, and after^hey had delivered 

 in exchange the aforesaid corpse, departed home."* 



Of the ingenuity of the Ant in removing obstacles, the 

 following anecdote is a very appropriate illustration : A 

 gentleman of Cambridge one day observed an Ant dragging 

 along what, with respect to the creature's size, might be de- 

 nominated a log of wood. Others were severally employed, 



1 Land and Water Creatures Compared, Holland, p. 



2 B. 7, c. 16, p. 665; printed 1613. 



3 Strong's Nat. Hist., iii. 163. 

 * Hollamrs Tranx., p. 787. 





