14G FORMICIDiE — ANTS. 



Formicidae — Ants. 



Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century before the birth 

 of Christ, tells the foHowing fabulous story without the^ 

 slitrhtest trace of diffidence or disbelief: There are other 

 Indians bordering: on the City of Caspatyrus and the country 

 of Pactyica, settled northward of the other Indians, whose 

 mode of life resembles that of the Bactrians. They are the 

 most warlike of the Indians, and these are they who are 

 sent to procure the gold ; for near this part is a desert by 

 reason of the sand. In this desert then, and in the sand, 

 there are Ants in size somewhat less indeed than dogs, but 

 larger than foxes. Some of them are in the possession of 

 the King of the Persians, which were taken there. These 

 Ants, forming their habitations under ground, heap up the 

 sand as the Ants in Greece do, and in the same manner ; and 

 they are very like them in shape. The sand that is heaped 

 up is mixed "with gold. The Indians, therefore, go to the 

 desert to get this sand, each man having three camels, on 

 either side a male one harnessed to draw by the side, and a 

 female in the middle ; this last the man mounts himself, hav- 

 ing taken care to yoke one that has been separated from her 

 young as recently as possible; for camels are not inferior to 

 horses in swiftness, and are much better able to carry bur- 

 dens The Indians then, adopting such a plan and 



such a method of harnessing, set out for the gold, having 

 before calculated the time, so as to be engaged in their plun- 

 der during the hottest part of the day, for during the heat 



the Ants hide themselves under ground When the 



Indians arrive at the spot, having sacks with them, they 

 fill these with the sand, and return with all possible expedi- 

 tion ; for the Ants, as the Persians say, immediately discov- 

 ering them by the smell, pursue them, and they are equaled 

 in swiftness by no other animal, so that if the Indians did 

 not get the start of them while the Ants were assembling, 

 not a man of them could be saved. Now the male camels 

 (for they are inferior in speed to the females) slacken their 

 pace, dragging on, not both equally; but the females, mind- 

 ful of the young they have left, do not slacken their pace. 

 Thus the Indians, as the Persians say, obtain the greatest 

 part of their gold.^ 



1 Herod., B. 3, 102-5. Gary's Trans., p. 214. 



