406 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare’s Time. 
The monstrous huge big beare being sickly, 
Eating of these is cured presently.” 
{Love’s Martyr, p. 115.) 
Montaigne illustrates liis proposition, that man shares 
with other inhabitants of the globe every passion he 
possesses, by reference to the storing propensities of the 
ant:— 
“ As to thrift, they surpass us not only in the foresight and laying 
up, and saving for the time to come, but they have moreover a great 
deal of the science necessary thereto. The ants bring abroad into the 
sun their grain and seed to air, refresh, and dry them, when they per¬ 
ceive them to mould and grow musty, lest they should decay and rot ; 
but the caution and prevention they use in gnawing their grains of wheat, 
surpass all imagination of human prudence : for by reason that the 
wheat does not always continue sound and dry, but grows soft, thaws 
and dissolves, as if it were steept in milk, whilst hasting to germina¬ 
tion, for fear lest it should shoot, and lose the nature and property of a 
magazine for their subsistence, they nibble off the end by which it 
should shoot and sprout. War,” he continues, “ which is the greatest 
and most magnificent of human actions,” is exemplified in the encounters 
of such small creatures as bees and ants. Some trifling quarrel, some 
petty jealousy, may cause a leader to sacrifice the lives of many 
thousands of men. “ This furious monster with so many heads and 
arms, is yet man, feeble, calamitous and miserable man. ’Tis but an 
ant-hill of ants disturb’d and provok’d by a spurn.” (Essay liv.) 
Huber, who studied with immense patience ant habits 
and customs, and published the result of his observations 
at the beginning of the present century, demolished for a 
time the claim of these little creatures to the virtues 
ascribed to them by earlier writers. The grains of corn, 
he contended, which they were supposed to hoard were in 
reality the young ants in the pupa stage of development. 
If we break open an ant-hill in the summer months we 
shall see that after the first moment of surprise and con¬ 
sternation the chief concern of the ants is for the safety 
of these small, white, grain-like forms, which they seize 
and carry off to a place of safety. Corn, he declared, 
