102 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



HARVESTING ANTS. 



BATES could not understand, judging by what he says, 

 what the ants wanted with the hard, dry mandioca 

 grains. If he had been as familiar with harvesting ants as 

 we now are thanks to the interesting publications of his 

 countryman, J. T. Moggridge he would not have been left 

 in doubt. It has been already shown in the historical 

 review given above (chap, v.) that the habit of ants in 

 Southern countries of gathering corn and using it as stored 

 up food, was well known in ancient times ; and the belief 

 remained until later observers (Swammerdamj Gould, 

 Christ, Latreille and others) rose up against it, and de- 

 clared that the whole account of harvesting ants was a 

 fable. Huber himself spoke most decidedly against it, and 

 was, indeed, supported by very good grounds. He main- 

 tained that, to begin with, the parts of the ant's mouth were 

 very unfitted for eating hard corn, and that they could only 

 feed on soft matters or fluids ; and that, secondly, a storing 

 up of food for winter provision was quite unnecessary, be- 

 cause they hibernated during the cold weather, and needed 

 no food. But if by chance, says Huber, a warm day comes 

 in the winter and wakes them up, they always have at hand 

 an adequate number of Aphides, which will also have been 

 aroused by the warm rays of the sun, and from which they 

 can obtain nourishment. So far as the strong mandibles of 

 the ant are concerned, we have already said that they serve 

 as weapons or tools, and never for eating. 



These views of Huber, the distinguished observer, silenced 

 for a long time all contradiction, and this the more because- 

 ants were never seen to stoi'e up corn in Northern lands, 

 save that occasionally they picked up grains of- corn, like 

 other things, and took them as building material to the nest. 

 The idea that ants were completely idle during the winter 



