3678 The Zoologist — September, 1873. 



of any kind were stored up." — Kirby and Spence, Introduction to Ento- 

 mology, 7th Ed., p. 313. 



" Do not let us attribute to the ant a useless prescience. Torpid during 

 the winter, why should she make provision for that season ? " — Latreille, 

 Natural History of Ants. 



" I am naturally led to speak in this place of the manner in which ants 

 subsist in the winter, seeing we have relinquished the opinion that they 

 amass wheat and other grain, and that they gnaw the corn to prevent it from 

 germinating." — Hiiber on Ants. 



" The curious idea, which seems to have commenced in very remote 

 times, and to have been carried down by tradition, and which was assisted 

 by the results of careless observations, concerning the habit of the ants in 

 collecting and storing up provisions, as it were, under the influence of a 

 wise foresight, is evidently incorrect." — Emile Blanchard, Transformations 

 of Insects, p. 196. 



A great many other authorities might be cited, but none can be 

 more decided or more to the purpose than that of William Gould, 

 for he not only shows, or believes that he shows, that Solomon was 

 mistaken, but explains how the mistake arose : he traces the error 

 to its source, and states that the cocoons which ants carry again 

 into their nests, after having been sunned on a fine day, were 

 supposed by Solomon and his successors to have been grains of 

 wheat, poor simpletons! and "his accurate observations," say 

 Kirby and Spence, "were among the first which led to a correction 

 of the error," and so Solomon was "put down" as we "put down" 

 a naughty Sunday-school child who has been telling a story. This 

 is the way with those who are wise in their own conceit. No one 

 ever announced a discovery at a scientific meeting but it was " put 

 down" in this manner, and I have now for twenty years abstained 

 from attending all such meetings, perhaps^?*/, because I don't like 

 to be snubbed, contradicted and ridiculed, and secondly, because 

 I don't like to see others treated in this way. Nothing has tended 

 so much to depress and retard the progress of Entomology in this 

 country as the practice of snubbing beginners, and hence we are 

 behind the whole world in our knowledge of that Science. Germans, 

 French, Italians, Russians, Americans, have passed us in the race 

 for knowledge, because those who ought to be leading us on are 

 perpetually holding us back. The explanation of the discrepancy 



