The Zoologist — September, 1873. 3681 



This was exactly what was required ; the excavator spread out 

 his treasure, and proceeded to ascertain, with the most scrupulous 

 attention, what were its component parts. We may readily imagine 

 the interest with which the inspection was made. 



" On carefully examining a quantity of the seed, grain and minute dry 

 fruits taken from the granaries, I found that they had been gathered from 

 the following plants : — fumitory [Fumaria capreolata), amaranth (Ama- 

 ranthus Blitum), Setaria, and three other species of grasses, moneywort, 

 Alyssum maritimum, Veronica, and from four unrecognised species, one of 

 which was a pea-flower. There were therefore in this nest seeds which had 

 been taken from more than twelve distinct species of plants, belonging to at 

 least seven separate families. The granaries lay from an inch and a half to 

 six inches below the surface, and were all horizontal. They were of various 

 sizes and shapes, the average granary being about as large as a gentleman's 

 gold watch. I was greatly surprised to find that the seeds, though quite 

 moist, showed no trace of germination, and this was the more astonishing as 

 the self-sown seeds of the same kind as those detected here, such as fumitory, 

 for instance, were then coming up abundantly in gardens and on terraces." — 

 P. 23. 



Mr. Moggridge confesses his difficulty in explaining the sound 

 condition of many of the seeds found under circumstances so 

 favourable to germination. In the examination of many thousands 

 of grains and seeds taken at different times from the stores of 

 twenty-one distinct nests, he only found traces of germination in 

 twenty-seven, and of this number eleven had been mutilated in 

 such a way as to arrest their growth. The sprouting seeds were 

 found from November to February, while in the nests opened in 

 October, March, April and May, no indications of germination 

 were found, although the temperature and moisture of these months 

 seemed highly favourable to germination. It is extremely rare to 

 find other than sound and intact seeds in these granaries, and 

 Mr. Moggridge consequently arrives at the somewhat vague and 

 unsatisfactory conclusion that " the ants exercise some mysterious 

 power over the seeds which checks the tendency to germinate." 

 The fact is the more puzzling since it was clearly proved that the 

 vitality of the seed was not affected by this storing. On two 

 occasions he tried the experiment. In the first instance the seeds 

 were taken from a granary about four inches below the surface of 

 the ground on the 10th of November, and sowed two days after- 

 wards, and several of them had come up by the 1st of December. 



