2r>2 



J\S)X///i. 



I l:iiiii:irv— M:irch i-W^i;. 



seeds of grasses and other plants are 

 often preserved for years in their little 

 magazines, without germinating. A 

 verj- small red ant, which drags grains 

 of wheat and oats into its dwellings, 

 lives in India. These ants are so small, 

 that eight or twelve of them have to 

 drag on one grain witli the greatest 

 exertion. They travel in two separate 

 ranks over smooth or rough ground, 

 just as it comes, and even up and down 

 steps, at the same regular pace. They 

 often have to travel with their booty 

 more than a thousand metres, to reach 

 their communal store-house. The re- 

 nowned investigator Moggridge repeat- 

 edly observed that when the ants were 

 prevented fi'om reaching their mag- 

 azines of grain, tiie seeds began to 

 sprout. The same was the case in 

 abandoned magazines of grain. Hence 

 the ants know how to prevent the sprout- 

 ing of the grains, but the capacity for 

 sprouting is not destroyed. The re- 

 nowned English investigator John Lub- 

 bock, who communicates this and sim- 

 ilar facts in his work entitled "Ants, 

 bees and wasps," adds that it is not 

 j'Ct known in what way the ants pre- 

 vent the sprouting of the collected 

 grains. But now it is demonstrated 

 that here also it is only the formic acid 

 whose preservative influence goes so far 

 that it can make seed incapable of ger- 

 mination for a determinate time or» con- 

 tinuously. 



It may be mentioned that we have 

 also amongst us a species of ant which 

 lives on seeds and stores these up. This 

 is our Ladua nir/er, which carries seeds 



of Viola into its nests, and, as Witt- 

 mack has communicated recently to the 

 Sitzungsberichte der gesellschaft natur- 

 forschender freunde zu Berlin, does the 

 same with the seeds of Verdnica hede- 

 raefoUa. 



Syke states in his account of an 

 Indian ant, Pheidole ])rovi(lens. that 

 this species collects a great store of 

 grass-seeds. But he observed that the 

 ants brought their store of grain into 

 the open air to drj- it alter the monsoon 

 storms. From this it appears that the 

 preservative effect of the formic acid is 

 destroyed b}' great moisture, and hence 

 this drjing process. So that amongst 

 the bees the honey which is stored for 

 winter use, and among the ants the 

 stores of grain which serve for food, 

 are preserved by one and the same fluid, 

 formic acid. 



EDITORIAL NOTK. 



This same theory has been suggested 

 many times by our most advanced Amer- 

 ican bee keepers. It has been hinted 

 that this same formic acid was what 

 made honey a poison to many people, 

 and that the sharp sting of some honey, 

 notably that from bass wood or linden, 

 originated in this acid from the poison 

 sack. If this is the correct explanation, 

 it seems strange that the same kind of 

 honey is always peculiar for greater or 

 less acidity as the case may be. We 

 often see bees with sting extended 

 and tippi'd with a tiny drop of poison : 

 but how do we know that tliis poison is 

 certainly mingled with the honej'? Is 

 this any more than a'guess? A. .1. Cook. 



