92 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXVI. 
Two years of nearly continuous observation of P. molifactens 
and its nests enable me to suggest the probable source of Lince- 
cum's and McCook's misconceptions. In either case the 
observer has started with a few facts and has then stopped 
short to draw inferences before gathering more facts. If the 
nests of moltfaciens be studied during the cool winter months, 
— and this is the only time to study the nests leisurely and 
comfortably, since the cold subdues the fiery stings of their 
inhabitants, — the seeds which the ants have garnered in many 
of their chambers will 
often be found to have 
sprouted.! On sunny 
days the ants may 
often be seen remov- 
ing these seeds when 
they have sprouted 
too far to be fit for 
food and carrying 
them to the refuse heap, which is always at the periphery of the 
cleared earthen disk or mound. In this place the seeds thus 
cast away as inedible often take root and somewhat later form 
an arc of tall grass more or less closely approximating a com- 
plete circle around the nest. Since the Pogonomyrmex feeds 
. largely, though by no means exclusively, on grass seeds, and 
since, moreover, the seeds of the Aristida are a very common 
and favorite article of food, it is easy to see how this grass 
should often predominate in the circle. In reality, however, 

Fia. 5. — Pogonomyrmex occidentalis E.T. Cresson. Worker 
harvesting ants of Texas are both of this kind. The trimmers prune a sort of 
weed which is to their taste so that it shall grow strong and sturdy, and the har- 
s ants go even further than this. They clear disks several yards across 
around about their nests of all manner of vegetation. Then they plant these 
farms with ant rice, which they watch d tend until it ripens, keeping the crop 
carefully free of weeds and insects. The ants’ dogs keep the ant cows out of the 
growing grain, and the farmer ants probably sit around themselves at night with 
shotguns to shoot colored ants suspected of pilfering." 
1 The same is true of the seed stores of Pheidole kingii, var. instabilis. It is 


. : this presen seems to be of no avail. 
