ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 55 



granaries, shall belong to the poor gleaners. Therefore the 

 upper half is to belong to the poor, the lower to the owner 

 of the field. 



Among classic writers the Greek poet Hesiod, in his agri- 

 cultural poem " Works and Days," speaks of the time 

 whereat the prudent ant harvests the corn ; and Horace, 

 in his Satires (I. i. 1. 33), alludes to the foresight of the ant, 

 which looks forward to and prepares for the future. Cicero 

 (" De Nat. Deorum," fib. m., chap, ix.) says of the ants : 

 " In formica non modo sensus sed etiam mens, ratio, 

 memoria." (The ant has not only sensation, but also mind, 

 reason, and memory.) Virgil, in the " JEneid," (book iv., 

 402) compares the Trojans, flying from Troy and laden with 

 treasures, to ants laden with corn, carrying their booty home 

 with eager haste. The Roman comic poet, Plautus, in his 

 comedy " Trinummus," act ii., scene 4, makes a slave enter, 

 who in order to make intelligible the rapid disappearance of 

 some money entrusted to him, says : "It vanished in a 

 moment as swiftly as a poppy-seed thrown to ants." Any 

 one who has seen the precipitation with which certain 

 Southern species of ants rush at grains of corn which are 

 thrown in their way, will confirm the accuracy of this 

 image. 



Pliny (" Natural History," book ii.) says of ants : " You 

 find among them a sort of Republic, as well as thought and 

 prudence .... they hold meetings at which they mutually 

 recognise each other. What proceedings go on ! with what 

 eagerness do they communicate with and question each other! 

 .... We see how pebbles are worn out by their running 

 over them, how posts sink deeper into the ground whereon 

 they regularly go to work. A great example of the power 

 of small but perpetual efforts." 



Claudius ^Elianus, who lived in the time of the Emperor 

 Hadrian (221 A.D.) gives the following picture of the habits 

 of ants, in his work on the "Nature of Animals " (ii., 25) : 

 " In the summer, when the ears are thrashed out after the 

 harvest, swarms of ants come to the threshing-floors, in order 

 to go thieving, sometimes singly, sometimes in bands. They 

 pick out the grains of wheat or barley, and carry them off 

 straight to their homes. Some busy themselves only with 

 collecting, others carry away the load, and they understand 

 very well how to get out of each others' way, especially the 



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