154 FORMICIDiE — ANT9. 



♦When Ants make haste with all their eggs aload, 

 Forth of their holes to carry them abroad.' "i 



In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, it is 

 also asserted that "when Ants walk the thickest, and more 

 than in vsuall numbers, meeting together confusedly, it is a 

 manifest signe of raine.'" 



It is related of the celebrated Tiraour, that being once 

 forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, 

 he sat alone many hours ; and, desirous of diverting his mind 

 from his hopeless condition, at length fixed his observation 

 upon an Ant which was carrying a grain of corn (probably 

 a pupa) larger than itself, up a high wall. Numbering the 

 efforts it made to accomplish this object, he found that the 

 grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground ; but the seventieth 

 time it reached the top of the wall. ''This sight," said 

 Timour, " gave me courage at the moment, and I have never 

 forgotten the lesson it conveyed."^ 



Plutarch, in his comparison between land and water crea- 

 tures, narrates the following anecdote : " Gleanthus the 

 Philosopher, although he maintaineth not that beasts have 

 any use of reason, made report nevertheless that he was 

 present at the sight of such a spectacle and occurrent as 

 this. There were (quoth he) a number of Ants which went 

 toward another Ant's hole, that was not their own, carrying 

 with them the corpse of a dead Ant ; out of which hole , 

 there came certain other Ants to meet them on the way (as 

 it were) to pari with them, and within a while returned back 

 and went down again; after this they came forth a second, 

 yea a third time, and retired accordingly until in the end 

 they brought up from beneath (as it were a ransom for the 

 dead body) a grub or little worm; which the others received 

 and took upon their shoulders, and after they had delivered 

 in exchange the aforesaid corpse, departed home."* 



Of the ingenuity of the Ant in removing obstacles, the 

 following anecdote is a very appropriate illustration : A 

 gentleman of Cambridge one day observed an Ant dragging 

 along what, with respect to the creature's size, might be de- 

 nominated a log of wood. Others were severally employed, 



1 Land and Water Creatures Compared, Holland, p. 787. 



2 B. 7, c. 16, p. 605; printed 1613. • 



3 Strong's Nat. Hist., iii. 163. 



4 Holland's Tram^.. p. 787. 



