546 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
that the ants worked chiefly in winter, and connects this with 
the statement of the Pundit above quoted. 
- In conclusion he writes :— 
«For us the story partakes no longer of the marvellous. The gold- 
digging ants were originally neither real ants, as the ancients supposed, 
nor, as the many eminent men of learning have supposed, larger animals 
mistaken for ants on account of their subterranean habits, but men of flesh 
and blood, and these men Thibetan miners, whose mode of life and dress 
were in the remotest antiquity, exactly what they are at the present day.” 
I append an extract from Sir Henry Rawlinson’s translation of 
the passage in Herodotus, as it may be of interest to some 
readers :— 
“‘ Besides these there are Indians of another tribe, who border on the 
city of Kaspatyrus and the country of Paktyika: these people dwell 
northward of all the rest of the Indians, and follow nearly the same 
mode of life as the Bactrians. They are more warlike than any of the 
other tribes, and from them the men are sent forth who go to procure 
the gold, for it is in this part of India that the sandy desert les. Here 
in this desert there live, amid the sand, great ants, in size somewhat 
less than dogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian king has a number 
of them, which have been caught by the hunters in the land whereof 
we are speaking. These ants make their dwellings underground, and, 
like the Greek ants, which they very much resemble in shape, throw 
up sandheaps as they burrow. Now, the sand which they throw up 
ig full of gold. The Indians when they go into the desert to collect 
this sand take three camels and harness them together, a female in 
the middle, and a male on either side in a leading-rein. The rider sits 
on the female, and they are particular to choose for this purpose one 
that has just dropped her young: for their female camels can run as 
fast as horses, while they bear burdens very much better. . . . When, 
then, the Indians reach the place where the gold is, they fill their 
bags with the sand and ride away at their best speed: the ants, how- 
ever, scenting them, as the Persians say, rush forth in pursuit. Now, 
these animals are so swift, they declare, that there is nothing in the 
world like them: if it were not, therefore, that the Indians get a 
start while the ants are mustering, not a single gold-gatherer could 
escape. During the flight the male camels, which are not so fleet as 
the females, grow tired, and begin to drag, first one and then the other, 
but the females recollect the young which they have left behind, and 
never give way or flag. Such, according to the Persians, is the manner 
in which the Indians get the greater part of their gold: some is dug 
out of the earth, but of this the supply is more scanty.” 
