Wood- Ants. 



295 



memory.* JElian, however, describes, as if he had actually 

 witnessed it, the ants ascending a stalk of growing corn, and 

 throwing down " the ears which^ they bit off to their compa- 

 nions below." Aldrovand assures us that he had seen their 

 granaries ; and others pretend that they shrewdly bite off the 

 ends of the grain to prevent it from germinating.f These 

 are fables which accurate observation has satisfactorily con- 

 tradicted. 



But these errors, as it frequently happens, have contributed 

 to a more perfect knowledge of the insects than we might 

 otherwise have obtained ; for it was the wish to prove or dis- 



Nest of Wood- Ant 



prove the circumstance of their storing ~p and feeding upon 

 grain which led Gould to make his observations on English 

 ants ; as the notion of insects being produced from putrid 

 carcases had before led Redi to his ingenious experiments on 

 their generation. Yet, although it is more than eighty years 



* In formica non modo sensus, seel etiam mens, ratio, memona. 



f Aldrovandus de Formicis, and Johnston, Thaumaturg. Nat. p. 356. 



