38 pliny's natural histoey. [Book XI. 



work in common, like bees; but whereas the last make their food, 

 the former only store 35 it away. If a person only compares the 

 burdens which the ants carry with the size of their bodies, he 

 must confess that there is no animal which, in proportion, is 

 possessed of a greater degree of strength. These burdens they 

 carry with the mouth, but when it is too large to admit of 

 that, they turn their backs to it, and push it onwards with 

 their feet, while they use their utmost energies with their shoul- 

 ders. These insects, also, have a political community among 

 themselves, and are possessed of both memory and foresight. 

 They gnaw each grain before they lay it by, for fear lest it 

 should shoot while under ground ; those grains, again, which 

 are too large for admission, they divide at the entrance of their 

 holes ; and those which have become soaked by the rain, they 

 bring out and dry. 36 They work, too, by night, during the 

 full moon ; but when there is no moon, they cease working. 

 And then, too, in their labours, what ardour they display, 

 what wondrous carefulness ! Because they collect their stores 

 from different quarters, in ignorance of the proceedings of one 

 another, they have certain days set apart for holding a kind of 

 market, on which they meet together and take stock. 37 What vast 

 throngs are then to be seen hurrying together, what anxious 

 enquiries appear to be made, and what earnest parleys 38 are 

 going on among them as they meet ! We see even the very 

 stones worn away by their footsteps, and roads beaten down 

 by being the scene of their labours. Let no one be in doubt, 

 then, how much assiduity and application, even in the very 

 humblest of objects, can upon every occasion effect ! Ants are 

 the only living beings, besides man, that bestow burial on the 

 dead. In Sicily there are no winged ants to be found. 



(31.) The horns of an Indian ant, suspended in the temple 



up grains against the winter, a period through which in reality they do 

 not eat. 



35 They stow away bits of meat and detached portions of fruit, to nourish 

 their larvae with their juices. 



36 It is in reality their larvae that they thus bring out to dry. The 

 working ants, or neutrals, are the ones on which these labours devolve : 

 the males and females are winged, the working ants are without wings. 



37 " Ad recognitionem mutuam." 



38 Some modern writers express an opinion that when they meet, they 

 converse and encourage one another by the medium of touch and smell. 



