BOOK XI. xxxvi. 109-XXXV11. 112 



out and dry them. They even work at night when 

 there is a fuU moon, although when there is no 

 moon they stop. Again what industry and what 

 diHgence is displayed in their work ! and since they 

 bring their bui-dens together from opposite directions, 

 and are unknown to one another, certain days are 

 assigned for market so that they may become 

 acquainted. How they flock together on these 

 occasions ! How busily they converse, so to speak, 

 with those they meet and press them with questions ! 

 We see rocks worn by their passage and a path made 

 by their labours, so that nobody may doubt how 

 much can be accomplished in any matter by even 

 a trifling amount of assiduity ! They are the only 

 Hving creatures beside man that bury their dead. — 

 Winged ants do not occur in Sicily. 



The horns <* of an Indian ant fixed up in the Temple ^^soM- 

 of Hercules were one of the siglits of Erythrae. 

 These ants carry gold out of caves in the earth in the 

 region of the Northern Indians called the Dardae. 

 The creatures are of the colour of cats and the size 

 of Egyptian wolves. The gold that they dig up in 

 winter time the Indians steal in the hot weather of 

 summer, when tlie heat makes the ants hide in 

 burrows ; but nevertheless they are attracted by 

 their scent and fly out and sting them repeatedly 

 although retreating on very fast camels : such speed 

 and such ferocity do these creatures combine with 

 their love of gold. 



XXXVII. Many insects however are born in Buuerflies 

 other ways as well, and in the first place from die\v. fromdew. 

 At the beginning of spring this lodges on the leaf of 

 a radish and is condensed by the sun and shrinks 

 to the size of a millet seed. Out of this a small 



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