SOME INSECT COMMUNITIES 55 



these living honey-pots meet with an accident so 

 that the honey exudes, the ordinary workers will 

 gather round and quickly lap it up ; but should 

 the honey-pot worker die, both corpse and honey 

 will be buried, an act which seems almost to 

 point that the normal workers realize the dangers 

 of decomposition. In Mexico, the globular Ants 

 are collected and sold by measure in the market 

 places of the towns, and from the syrup extracted 

 by pressure from the bodies of the Ants, a rather 

 pleasant, sweetish drink, not unlike old English 

 mead, is made. 



The habit of harvesting grain peculiar to 

 certain species of Ants, aptly termed Agri- 

 cultural Ants, found in the south of Europe, in 

 India, and Texas, is very remarkable. Although 

 this habit was observed and frequently mentioned 

 in ancient literature, it was for a long time 

 regarded with considerable doubt and scepticism 

 by scientific men. Thanks to the careful and 

 critical observations of Lieut.-Col. Sykes in India, 

 of Mr. Moggridge in Southern Europe, and of 

 Dr. McCook in Texas, these doubts have been 

 swept away, and the grain-storing habit proved 

 and established as a fact. The Agricultural 

 Ants of Texas clear disks, ten or twelve feet in 

 diameter, round the entrance of the nest of all 

 weeds and plants, only permitting the so-called 

 ant-rice (Aristida strictd) to grow within the clear- 

 ing so made. Dr. McCook states that " about 

 the ist of November, at the fall, a green row 

 of the ant-rice, about four inches wide, is seen 

 springing up on the pavement (disk) in a circle 

 of fourteen or fifteen feet in circumference. In 



