BY HENRY TRYON. 159 
of Rockhampton. The soil in which they had elected to 
place their nest was of that description known as “chocolate 
soil,” a designation which should convey a pretty precise idea of 
its colour at any rate. This nest was subterranean, and ap- 
proached by a nearly circular entrance, 3 m.m. in diameter. Its 
immediate neighbourhood was not conspicuously bare®of herbage, 
but what more especially distinguished the nest was a heap of 
the hairy husks of some grass, piled loosely around it. Observing 
this heap, numerous ants were soon noticed coming towards the 
~ nest, each heavily laden with a floret of a grass. These florets 
were found to contain ripe seed, and to be derived from a grass, 
growing plentifully in the locality, which they seemed to harvest 
in preference to the seeds of other varieties of grass. The ants 
carried the florets by fixing their well-developed jaws in the 
basal portion, and though such loads would seem to impede very 
much their progression, and though the loose heap of empty 
husks, surrounding the entrance to their nest, would appear to 
impose a formidable obstacle to their gaining it, it was not a 
little surprising to witness the adroitness with which they 
accomplished their object in view, and how skilfully they would 
manceuvre, and eventually extricate their load from every 
obstruction with which they came in contact. Whilst these 
operations were going on ants were ever and anon emerging 
from their granary, bearing with them husks of the same 
grass which were empty and deprived of their seeds. These 
seeds were afterwards found in plenty in the galleries of the 
nest. 
No disparity between the sizes of the ants occupied in the 
two different operations mentioned was noticed, nor was there 
anything seen to militate against the conclusion that the same ant 
which carried a grass-floret into the nest may have also removed 
the seed whilst below and returned with the empty husk to the 
surface. 
