104 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



leaves, stones, or other suitable places, and let certain 

 workers have the duty of carrying them from depot to depot. 

 Lespes sometimes found two or three such depots on a single 

 road. This is yet more strikingly illustrated by an observa- 

 tion of Moggridge, quite analogous to that which we have 

 already given from Bates on the leaf-cutting species. He 

 saw some ants climb up the haulms of the grain-bearing 

 ears, and shake or throw down the grains, while others wait- 

 ing below took up the fallen grains and carried them towards 

 the granaries. But they only took them to the entrance of 

 the nest, where other comrades were in waiting, and pulled 

 the grains inside. Moggridge also tried to deceive the little 

 robbers by scattering little china beads of the size and color 

 of the grain in their way. These were at first picked up and 

 carried off. But the wise little creatures soon found out 

 their mistake, and left the useless beads alone. But let us 

 rather allow Moggridge to tell his interesting experiences 

 himself, in a somewhat compressed form : 



" I had scarcely set foot on the garrigue, as this kind of 

 wild ground is called to distinguish it from meadows or 

 terraced land, before I was met with a long train of ants, 

 forming two continuous lines, hurrying in opposite directions, 

 the one with their mouths full, the others with their mouths 

 empty. It was easy enough to find the nest to which these 



ants belonged The nearly continuous double line 



measured twenty-four yards. Even this gives but an in- 

 adequate idea of the number of ants actively employed in 

 the service of this colony, for hundreds of them were dis- 

 persed among the weeds on the terrace, and many were also 

 employed in sorting the materials and in attending to the 

 internal economy of the nest It is not a little sur- 

 prising to see that the ants bring in not only seeds of large 

 size and fallen grain, but also green capsules, the torn 

 stalks of which show that they have been freshly gathered 

 from the plant. The manner in which they accomplish 

 this feat is as follows. An ant ascends the stem of a 

 fruiting plant, of Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa pastoris) 

 let us say, and selects a well-filled but green pod about mid- 

 way up the stem, those below being ready to shed their 

 seeds at a touch. Then, seizing it in its jaws, and fixing its 

 hindlegs firmly as a pivot, it contrives to turn round and 

 round, and so strain the fibres of the fruit-stalk that at 



