212 
Rev. F. W. Hope on some Doubts 
numerous are the authors quoted, that it does appear to me some- 
what remarkable, that the fact of ants hoarding up grain was ever 
a disputed point. I shall only allude at present to one passage, 
in the works of Sir William Jones, which agrees with those of the 
other authors already mentioned. He states, “ Never shall I 
forget the couplet of Firdausi, for which Sadi, who cites it with 
applause, pours blessings on his departed spirit. 
‘ Ah ! spare yon Emmet, rich in hoarded grain, 
He lives with pleasure, and he dies with pain.’ ”* 
From the above writers it will appear then, that the notion of 
ants hoarding up grain was entertained in Asia and Europe ; and 
if any person is still disposed to question this point, let him ex- 
plain away, if possible, the statement of Colonel Sykes respecting 
Atta providens, which is published in an early number of our En- 
tomological Transactions. As the first inquiry is then disposed of, 
viz. that the ant is a provident insect, let us next examine if Vir- 
gil’s opinion is correct, “ That ants hoard up grains against the 
winter.” Now if Colonel Sykes is accurate in his statements, and 
he can scarcely be otherwise, for he has specimens of the seeds 
he saw the ants bringing up from below, to the heap on the sur- 
face of the earth, specimens of the grass producing the seed, and 
he wrote down in his diary the same day the facts as he had wit- 
nessed them, I think it will be seen at once that his facts tend 
to confirm the opinion of the ancients, that ants provide against a 
season of need, call it winter, or any other season. The state- 
ment from the Transactions is nearly as follows: — “The grass 
seeds were treasured up by the ants before the rains commenced ; 
they were probably injured by the wet, and the ants were busily 
occupied in exposing them to the influence of the sun.” It ap- 
pears then that that measure which in one country was attributed 
to the ants as precautionary against cold, may, with equal justice, 
in another clime be applied to the influence of the rains during 
the monsoon. So little is known respecting the ceconomy of our 
indigenous insects, and even less regarding exotic species, that it 
would be rash to hazard a decided opinion concerning them. 
And it will be borne in mind (as we find to be the case amongst 
some species of birds and mammalia) that a habit which charac- 
terizes a species in a particular climate, is no longer the charac- 
teristic of that species in a different climate. The same species 
of animal that hybernates in extra tropical climates no longer 
does so within the tropics. It will be borne in mind, also, that in 
the great family of the ants, the species of some genera may 
* Vide Works of Sir William Jones, vol. i. p. 153. 
