VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 303 



which, had the supposition been true, could not probably fail of succeeding. At 

 the beginning of spring, he placed in several flower pots, and other conveniencies, 

 different colonies of yellow small black ants, &c. with their respective queens, at- 

 tendants, and vermicles; in which position they continued summer, autumn, 

 and winter, and carried on their operations as in other settlements, nourished 

 their young, and brought them to perfection; whence he concludes, that 

 they would have laid up provisions had it been their custom ; but, on carefully 

 examining some of these pots, he found no appearance of magazines of corn, or 

 any collected food; and that on his having frequently observed their excursions 

 from, and return to their colonies, he could never find that they ever returned 

 with any wheat, com, or any other vegetable seed; though they would with 

 eagerness attack a pot of honey, or a jar of sweatmeats, &c. 



Whether they lay in their food against winter, can only be determined by exa- 

 mining into the fact : this our author has done with great diligence, and has dis- 

 covered, 'with respect to our English ants, that they eat not at all in the winter, 

 and have no stores laid in of any sort of food. The opinion therefore of their 

 laying in magazines against winter, seems to have been grafted on the scriptures, 

 rather than found in them ; and this from a conclusion naturally enough made, 

 from observing their wonderful labour and industry in gathering their food in the 

 summer ; supposing that this must be to provide against winter. And after all, 

 great part of their labour, which may have been bestowed in other services, might 

 easily be mistaken, by less accurate observers, for carrying in food. 



j4 Remark on Father Hardouins ^mendmenl of a Passage in Pliny's Natural 

 History, Lib. 2, ^ 74, Edit. Paris, folio, 1723. By Martin Folkes, Esq. 

 Pr. R. S. N" 482, p. 365. 



Father Hardouin's reading of the passage is, " Vasaque horoscopa non ubique 

 eadem sunt usui, in trecentis stadiis, aut ut longissime, in quingentis, mutantibus 

 semet umbris solis. Itaque umbilici (quern gnomonem appellant) umbra in 

 iEgypto meridiano tempore, sequinoctii die, paulo plusquam dimidiam gnomonis 

 mensuram efHcit. In urbe Roma nona pars gnomonis deest umbra;. In oppido 

 Ancone superest quinta. Decima in parte Italiae, quae Venetia appellatur, eisdem 

 horis umbra gnomoni par fit." 



The geographical reader cannot but observe here immediately, that something 

 is faulty in this passage as it stands ; since the equinoctial shadow of the gnomon 

 being made shorter at Ancona than at Rome, the latitude of Ancona must con- 

 sequently be less than that of Rome; whereas it is known to be considerably 

 greater; Ancona standing on the Adriatic, about 2 degrees to the north of that 

 capital. 



But on turning to Hardouin's observations on this passage, the text is found 



