148 NOTES ON QUEENSLAND ANTS, 
Mr. T. C. Jerdon incidentally refers to the habit in the above- 
mentioned Indian ant, and especially dwells on its economic 
aspect.* 
Mr. J. J. Lake assets: the depredations of ants upon a pile 
of unthreshed wheat, lying on a threshing floor adjoining his 
house at Zante, and mentions that the seed so carried off was ' 
found to be stored up in the nests of these ants. 
In 1866 M Lespés wrote in the “‘ Revue des Cours Scientifi- 
ques,” on the same subject. In the same year also Dr. Gideon 
Lincecum related ¢ his observations concerning a Texan ant— 
‘‘ Myrmica molefaciens”—which was in the habit of sowing a par- 
ticular grass, tending the crop, and afterwards reaping the 
harvest. These interesting particulars had already, in 1862, 
formed the subject of a communication to Mr. Darwin, § and 
they are again repeated, with some omissions, in an interesting 
popular article—“The Agricultural Ant of Texas” 4/—by the 
same author. 
The writer, however, whose published investigations have 
created the most interest, is Mr. J. Traherne Moggridge, who 
during a residence at Mentone in the south of Hurope, in 1871-2, 
made the habits of the harvesting ants of that district his special 
study. Mr. Moggridge first noticed that the ants Atta structor 
A. barbara, and Pheidole megacephala, as autumn approaches, 
were in the habit of storing up the seeds of flowering plants, 
such as Polygonum a aviculare, Capsella bursa-pastoris, and Alsine 
*« Annals and Magazine of Natural History,” series 2. 1854. Vol. 
XIII. Independent testimony to the accuracy of some of the observa- 
tions recorded by Col. Sykes and Mr. Jerdon will be found in “ Wander- 
ings of a Naturalist in India,” by A. L. Adams, M.D., pp. 38-39, Edin., 
1867. On the economy of this Indian ant, the reader is also referred to 
the authors quoted by the Rev. W. Hope. 
+ Athenzum, No. 1950, March 11, 1865, p. 35. 
t Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia, 1866, p. 323. 
§ Journ. Lin. Soc., London, 1862, p.p. 29-31; cf. S. B. Buckley, P. Ac. 
Philad., 1860, p. 446. 
{ Hardwicke’s Science Gossip, Jan. 1868, pp. 1-5. 
