PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 349 



they sometimes pull "open to let out the enclosed insect, mistook the one 

 for the other, and this action for depriving; the grain of the corculum. 

 Mr. Gould, our countryman, was one of the fust historians of the ant who 

 discovered that they did not store up corn ; and since his time nauralists 

 have generally subscribed to that opinion. 



Till the manners of exotic ants are more accurately explored, it woul4, 

 however, be rash to affirm that no ants have magazines of provisions ; for 

 although, during the cold of our winters in this country, they remain in 

 a state of torpidity, and have no need of food, yet in warmer regions, 

 during the rainy seasons, when they are probably confined to their nests, 

 a store of provisions may be necessary for them.^ Even in northern 

 climates, against wet seasons, they may provide in this way for their 

 sustenance and that of the young brood, which, as Mr. Smeathman 

 observes, are very voracious, and cannot bear to be long deprived of their 

 food ; else why do ants carry worms, living insects, and many other such 

 things into their nests? Solomon's lesson to' the sluggard has been 

 generally adduced as a strong confirmation of the ancient opinion : it can, 

 however, only relate to the species of a warm climate, the habits of which, 

 as I have just observed, are probably different from those of a cold one ; — 

 so that his words, as commonly interpreted, may be perfectly correct and 

 consistent with nature, and yet be not at all applicable to the species that 

 are indigenous to Europe. But I think, if Solomon's words are properly 

 considered, it will be found that this interpretation has been fathered 

 upon them, rather than fairly deduced from them. He does not affirm 

 that the ant, which he proposes to his sluggard as an example, laid up in 

 her magazines stores of grain : " Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider 

 her ways and be wise ; which, having neither captain, overseer, nor ruler, 

 prepares her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest." 

 These words may very well be interpreted simply to mean, that the ant, 

 with commendable prudence and foresight, makes use of the proper 

 seasons to collect a supply of provision sufficient for her purposes. 

 There is not a word in them implying that she stores up grain or other 

 provision. She prepares her bread, and gathers her food, — namely, such 

 food as is suited to her, — in summer and harvest, — that is, when it is most 

 plentiful, — and thus shows her wisdom and prudence by using the advan- 

 tages offered to her. The words thus interpreted, which they may be 

 without any violence, will apply to our European species as well as to 

 those that are not indigenous. 



I shall now bid farewell to the ancients, and proceed to lay before 

 you what the observations of modern authors have enabled me to add to 



' This supposition has been verified by Col. Sykes's discovery at Poona in India of a 

 species of ants {Alta prooidens Sykes), which store upthe seeds of a kind of grass {Panicum) 

 at the period of jheir bein^ ripe in January and February, and which he saw them in June 

 and October bringing up and exposing on the outside of their nests to the sun in heaps as 

 big as a handful, apparently for the purpose of drying ihem after being welled by the rains 

 of the monsoon. (Trans. Eat. Sic. Load. i. 103.) It does nut seem easy to assign any 

 plausible reason for the original collecting and storing, and subsequent drying and airing 

 of these seeds, except on the supposition of their being intentled in some way for food ; and 

 though we have no previously recorded instance of ants feeding on any other vegetable 

 substance than such as are saccharine, yet, as all our experience proves how constantly in 

 entomology exceptions are occurring to supposed general laws, there seems good reason to 

 believe that this is one of them. (See the Rev. F. W. Hope's remarks on this subject ia 

 Trans. Ent. Sue. Lond. ii. 211.) 



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