plants, such as fumitory, pellitory, Polygonum aviculare, and grasses, from seeds taken out of granaries.[1]
I have frequently remarked that it is the seeds last collected before a fall of rain which are brought out in a sprouting condition from the nest; for I have observed in cases where I had recently scattered seeds near wild nests, that it is these which are carried out from the nest and placed to dry after a wet night; and so in the case of a nest which I kept in captivity, when a variety of different seeds had been successively supplied to the ants, it was the cabbage, lettuce, and chicory seeds, given the day before the nest was watered, that reappeared after having been carried below, and not the hemp, canary, and mixed seeds of wild plants previously strewed on the nest. It seems possible that the process, whatever it may be, to which the ants subject the seeds which are to remain dormant may require some time, and the construction of the granary chambers is doubtless a long affair, so that when unusually large supplies of grain, &c., are brought in by the workers some part of them may not find the necessary accommodation and attention. When the seeds do germinate in the nests, and it is my belief that they are usually softened and made to sprout before they are consumed by the ants, it is very curious to see how the growth is checked in its earliest stage, and how, after the radicle or fibril—the first growing
- ↑ This experiment was tried by me on two occasions, in the former case the seeds were taken from a granary about four inches below the surface of the ground, on November 10th, and sowed two days afterwards, and several of these were up on Dec. 1st. The second trial was made on seeds found at only one and a half inch below the surface, on Dec. 29th, 1871; these were sowed in England on June 18th, 1872, and the young plants made their appearance in large numbers ten days afterwards.
