44 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



store up provision for the future. Their food was 

 not of a nature which would admit of this. Some 

 of the southern ants, however, laid up stores of 

 grain. Some at least did take steps to provide 

 themselves with food for the future. Ants were 

 not without their enemies. In addition to birds 

 and other large foes were some very small flies of 

 the genus P/tora, that might be observed in summer 

 every now and again making a dash at a particular 

 ant. Curiously enough there seemed to be in ant 

 life three principal types, offering an analogy to the 

 three great phases in the history of human develop- 

 ment — the hunting, the pastoral, and the agri- 

 cultural stages. In face even of the facts upon 

 record, it was impossible not to ask ourselves how 

 far were ants mere exquisite automatons, how far 

 were they conscious beings ? When we saw an ant- 

 hill, tenanted by thousands of industrious inhabitants, 

 excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making roads, 

 guarding their home, gathering food, feeding the 

 young, tending their domestic animals, each one 

 fulfilling its duties industriously and without con- 

 fusion, it was difficult altogether to deny to them 

 the gift of reason. Observations tended to confirm 

 the opinion that their mental powers differed from 

 those of man not so much in kind as in degree. In 

 conclusion, he might say that, notwithstanding the 

 labours of many great naturalists, there were in 

 natural history few more promising or extensive 

 fields for research than the habits of ants. 



Some of his papers and addresses, particularly one 



