iv SOCIAL HOMES 137 



fatigue inseparable from toil. The avenues are made 

 with like intent, enabling speedy and ready journey- 

 ing to the harvest grounds and back. The exertion 

 involved in searching for the wished-for plant-seeds, 

 in adjusting them for convenient carriage, and in 

 bearing the weights, is remarkable considering the size 

 of the workmen at their calling, and amply justifies 

 them in lightening their labours by every means 

 in their power. The seeds are stored in large 

 quantities, entire as gathered, and also stripped of 

 their shells, and are believed to serve the gleaners 

 as food during their confinement in winter. Ref- 

 use heaps, consisting of the discarded shells and 

 glumes,* are raised outside, and have been facetious- 

 ly termed the kitchen middens. On opening some of 

 the nests in spring the granaries are discovered to be 

 not nearly so well stocked as in the fall, a fact that 

 argues strongly in favour of the actual consumption of 

 the seed. 



As the season advances, and autumn once more 

 deepens into winter, while some disks continue to be 

 kept free of herbage of every description, many of the 

 platforms become partially covered with a row of one 

 particular plant, the Aristida stricta, or "Ant Rice." 

 The circular cluster is strictly limited by the outer 

 bound or circumference of the clearing, beyond which 

 grows the ordinary wild grass of the locality. It 

 ripens by the ensuing spring, and there seems little 

 doubt that from it the ants then gather in a harvest 

 of seed, subsequently cutting down and removing its 

 dry stubble, along with any weeds that have trespassed 

 on the private property during winter; leaving the 



