I02 THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



on their preferred plant. They act in such a way 

 that in the case of men we should say, purely and 

 simply, that they were cultivating. The art of 

 treating the earth with a view of augmenting the 

 products which it yields is certainly of all the mani- 

 festations of human activity that which we should 

 least expect to find among animals. It is, however, 

 impossible otherwise to describe the conduct of 

 Agricultural Ants. The field which they prepare is 

 found in front of their ant-hill ; it is a terrace in 

 extent about a square metre or more ; there they will 

 allow no other plant to grow but that from which they 

 propose to gather fruit. This latter {Aristida stricta) 

 is rather like a grain of oats, and in taste resembles 

 rice; in America it is called ant rice. This culture 

 represents for these insects a much more important 

 property than a wheat field for man. It is, in relation 

 to their size, a forest planted with great trees, in com- 

 parison with which baobabs and sequoias are dwarfs. 

 It is not known if the Pogonomyrmex sow their rice; 

 Lincecum asserted that the ants actually sow the 

 seeds, that he had seen the process going on year 

 after year ; " there can be no doubt," he concludes, 

 "of the fact that this particular species of grass is 

 intentionally planted, and in farmer-like manner 

 carefully divested of all other grasses and weeds 

 during the time of its growth."^ McCook is not able 

 to accept this unqualified conclusion. " I do not 

 believe that the ants deliberately sow a crop, as 

 Lincecum asserts, but that they have, for some reason, 



^ Lincecum's most important published paper on the habits of the 

 Myrmica moUefaciens appeared in the Proc. Acad. Nat. Set. Phila- 

 delphia, vol. xviii. , 1866, p. 323-331. See also Darwin, Proceedings of 

 the Linmean Soc, 1S61. 



