GO TO THE ANT 237 



look as though it were suffering with an acute attack of 

 dropsy. In any case, the life of a honey-bearer must he 

 singularly uneventful, not to say dull and monotonous ; but 

 no doubt any small inconvenience in this respect must be 

 more than compensated for by the glorious consciousness 

 that one is sacrificing one's own personal comfort for the 

 common good of universal anthood. Perhaps, however, 

 the ants have not yet reached the Positivist stage, and may 

 be totally ignorant of the enthusiasm of formicity. 



Equally curious are the habits and manners of the 

 harvesting ants, the species which Solomon seems to have 

 had specially in view when he advised his hearers to go to 

 the ant — a piece of advice which I have also adopted as the 

 title of the present article, though I by no means intend 

 thereby to insinuate that the readers of this volume 

 ought properly to be classed as sluggards. These in- 

 dustrious little creatures abound in India : they are so 

 small that it takes eight or ten of them to carry a single 

 grain of wheat or barley ; and yet they will patiently dra?? 

 along their big burden for five hundred or a thousand 

 yards to the door of their formicary. To prevent the grain 

 from germinating, they bite off the embryo root — a piece 

 of animal intelligenca outdone by another species of ant, 

 which actually allows the process of budding to begin, so 

 as to produce sugar, as in malting. After tlie last thunder- 

 storms of the monsoon the little prop'"'etors bring up all 

 the grain from their granaries to dry in the tropical sun- 

 shine. The quantity of grain stored up by the harvesting 

 ants is often so large that the hair-splitting Jewish casuists 

 of the Mishna have seriously discussed the question whether 

 it belongs to the landowner or may lawfully be appropriated 

 by the gleaners. ' They do not appear,' says Sir Johu 

 Lubbock, ' to have considered the rights of the ants.' In- 

 deed our duty towards insects is a question which seems 



