it from germinating." He then goes on to show how the ants are frequently torpid during the winter, and that when it happens that a few warmer days wake them up to life, they can always find a few aphides also on the alert; for, strange to say, the same degree of warmth which rouses the ants calls forth the aphides also. It would appear that ants in the northern parts of Europe feed on the honey-dew of aphides, and on animal matter when they can get it; and up to the present time the belief prevails among our modern naturalists that they are limited to the same diet in all parts of Europe.
It is now well known, however, that exceptions must probably be made in tropical countries, for the observations of Lieut.-Col. Sykes[1] and Dr. Jerdon[2] have shown that many ants in India collect grain in large quantities, robbing the crops and plants cultivated in gardens, and even stealing seeds put away in drawers, the inference being that they employ them for food. The same observers have recorded how the ants may be seen after wet weather bringing out the grain to dry in the sun.
Dr. Lincecum has also given a very interesting account[3] of the habits of the "agricultural ant" inhabiting Texas, Myrmica (Atta) barbata—F2], which not only stores the grain of a particular rice-like grass, but is said
- ↑ Lieut.-Col. Sykes, Description of New Indian Ants, in Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., i. 103 (1836), where a single species of ant, which he names Atta providens, is described, and its habit of harvesting recorded.
- ↑ Dr. Jerdon, Madras Journal Lit. and Sc. (1851), where three species are stated to harvest seeds on a large scale—namely, Œcodoma (or Atta) providens, Œcodoma diffusa, and Atta rufa, all of which belong to the same section of ants as our Mentonese harvesters, Atta barbara, Atta structor, and Pheidole (or Atta) megacephala. These very interesting observations of Dr. Jerdon's, as well as those of Lieut.-Col. Sykes, will be found in Appendix B.
- ↑ Published in the Journal of the Linnean Society of London, vol. vi. p. 29. 1861.
