82 Field-Labourers 



in hard frost. Gilbert White remarked that worms 

 worked most in spring ; but he added that they were 

 by no means torpid during the dead months, and were 

 in fact out, even in winter, on every mild night. 



There is, however, another and much smaller animal, 

 which, as some people think, has done much work 

 hitherto attributed to the overpraised worm. Ants 

 have not generally had the reputation of being useful 

 to the agriculturist, however clever some of them may 

 be as agriculturists on their own account ; but in 

 Ireland, according to at least one observer, they do 

 appear to have been most useful ; and if in Ireland, 

 then why not elsewhere ? 



These Irish hill-building ants love what the worm 

 cannot bear, a dry, sandy, or peaty soil ; and they are 

 busy at work from early spring to late autumn, all 

 through the hot weather, when the worm is compara- 

 tively idle. Yet even so, they do not work for more 

 than about five months of the year ; whereas the worm 

 works on an average at least six, and in mild, damp 

 Winters often much more. 



However, whatever their respective merits, the ants 

 work where and when the worms cannot do so, and 

 are most useful where there are crags, or large stones, 

 with patches of sandy peat ; for the hill-building ants 

 always choose rock to build upon, and gradually cover 

 the surface with soil. These patches are at once taken 

 possession of by grass and other seeds, and so the soil 

 is kept in place. During the winter there may be a 

 little loss by wind and rain, but the greater part is 

 held together by the roots, and a patch of permanent 

 vegetation is formed where previously there was only 

 bare stone. 



