60 HARVESTING ANTS. 
by gleaners—giving the latter the benefit of the doubt. 
They do not appear to have considered the rights of 
the ants. 
Hope! has called attention to the fact that Meer 
Hassan Ali, in his ‘History of the Mussulmans,’ 
expressly mentions it. ‘More industrious little crea- 
tures,’ he says, ‘ cannot exist than the small red ants, 
which are so abundant in India. I have watched them 
at their labours for hours, without tiring. They are so 
small, that from eight to twelve in number labour with 
great difficulty to convey a grain of wheat or barley, 
yet these are not more than half the size of a grain of 
English wheat. I have known them to carry one of 
these grains to their nest, at a distance from 600 to 
1,000 yards. They travel in two distinct lines over 
rough or smooth ground, as it may happen, even up 
and down steps, at one regular pace. The returning 
unladen ants invariably salute the burthened ones, who 
are making their way to the general storehouse ; but it 
is done so promptly, that the line is neither broken nor 
their progress impeded by the salutation.’ 
Sykes, in his account of an Indian ant, Pheidole 
providens,’ appears to have been the first of modern 
scientific authors to confirm the statements of Solomon. 
He states that the above-named species collects large 
stores of grass seeds, on which it subsists from February 
1 Trams. Ent. Soc. .840, p. 213. 
2 Ibid. 1836, p. 99. Dr. Lincecum has also made a similar 
observation. 
