56 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



laden and unladen. These remarkable creatures, when they 

 have arrived at home, and have filled their granaries with 

 wheat and barley, perforate each grain in the middle. That 

 which falls out serves as flour for the ants, and the re- 

 mainder is incapable of germination. They perform this 

 notable piece of domestic economy, lest the seeds, in the 

 rainy season, should sprout, and so their food should be 

 destroyed. So ants in this, as in other matters, have their 

 fair share in the gifts of nature." 



^Elianus further gives a very interesting account of the 

 way of gathering and treating the corn, the particulars of 

 which have mostly been fully corroborated by other ob- 

 servers. " When they set out on a foraging expedition, the 

 largest ants march in front as generals. When they reach 

 the harvest field, the younger ants remain at the foot of the 

 grain-stalk, while the elder ones and the leaders climb up 

 and throw down the gnawed-off grains to those waiting 

 below. These then free the grain from the husk and carry 

 off the seed. So ants obtain the food of man, which he 

 ploughs and sows for himself, while they neither thresh nor 

 winnow." , 



jElianus appears also to have heard of the habit of ants 

 in tropical countries; for he says (Book xvi., 15): "The 



Indian ant is certainly a clever creature They leave 



an opening at the surface of their nests, through which they 

 go in and out, when they bring the collected grain." 



Aldrovandus, a writer of the seventeenth century, in his work 

 on Insects (Book v.), speaks of ants, which store up grains of 

 corn and gnaw off tne radicles ; but it is not certain whether 

 he speaks from his own observation or only from hearsay. 



The neatly told fable of Fontaine of the ant and the 

 grasshopper is well known ; it was borrowed by him from 

 the old Greek fabulist, JEsop. ./Esop relates : " The ants 

 were busy one winter time drying in the sun the contents of 

 their rain-drenched granaries. A grasshopper who saw this,, 

 and was at the point of dying of hunger, came near and 

 begged for a morsel. Said one of the ants : ' What were 

 you doing in the summer, you lazybones, that you need 

 now beg for bread ? ' The grasshopper answered : ' I lived 

 for pleasure. I sang and gave pleasure to the passers-by/ 

 ' Oh, oh ! ' sneered the ant, turning away, ' dance in winter, 

 if you sing in summer. Gather food for the future when 



