AND OTHER ANIMALS. Ill 



cultivation of the soil. There is, for instance, no digging 

 nor sowing among the Dokos (Biichner) ; no agriculture 

 among the Andaman Islanders (Owen). The Nuehr and 

 other savages 'depend for subsistence solely on what 

 nature produces, therefore neither sow nor plant, and conse- 

 quently are frequently on the verge of starvation' (Biichner). 

 The Veddas of Ceylon live without ' any system of culti- 

 vation ' (Hartshorn e), and the Bushmen of Southern Africa 

 have neither nocks nor cultivated ground (Richerer). On 

 the other hand, according to the observations of Dr. Lincecum, 

 who has carefully studied its habits since 1848, there is in 

 Mexico, Texas, and other parts of the North American 

 Union an ant which has been distinctively called the ' agri- 

 cultural ' or ' harvesting ' ant. It ' not only stores up seed, 

 but cultivates the plants which are to provide it, and care- 

 fully gathers in its crop at the right season. ... In the 

 wet season the seeds in the ant granaries are apt to get 

 wetted and to sprout ; and accordingly on the first fine day 

 the ants bring out all the damaged grain and set it in the 

 sun to dry, returning to the store only such as is uninjured.' * 

 These ants may truly be said to cultivate their estates. 

 They have grass paddocks round their nests, and they weed 

 these paddocks. From their fields they clear off all herbage 

 save Aristida stricta, a grain-bearing grass, called by Dr. 

 Lincecum 'ant rice,' and they sow the seeds of the same 

 grass. When ripe, the grain is harvested and the chaff 

 removed. Several other grains or seeds of grasses and 

 other plants are gathered and garnered in a similar way. 

 These ants, therefore, sow, reap, and store grain for 

 winter use. If the grain is set a-sprouting by damp from 

 inundations it is dried in the sun on fine days it is exposed, 

 that is, only during the day and during sunshine, being 

 taken indoors at night. According to Belt, certain leaf- 

 cutting ants of Nicaragua cultivate fungi on decomposing 

 leaves in their subterranean nests, 'the ants cutting and 

 storing the leaves for the sake of the fungi which are subse- 

 quently developed in the debris,' 2 and which fungi he sup- 



1 ' Athenzeum,' January 16, 1875, p. 87. 

 'Nature,' April 8, 1875, p. 458. 

 9 



