However, just as the ancient writers, judging from their own experience and from the reports of others, had erred in attributing to ants in general the habit of seed-storing possessed by certain species commonly found in the south, so have modern naturalists fallen into the mistake of denying it to any of the European species.
The older authors who lived in Greece and Italy, and the mediæval authors who drew their information in great measure from the former, being familiar with the fact that some ants habitually collect large supplies of seed, went so far as to assert, or to imply, that all European ants do so; the authors of the present day, on the other hand, generalizing too freely from their experience of ants found near their northern homes, maintained and maintain the very reverse.
So long as Europe was taught natural history by southern writers the belief prevailed; but no sooner
- [Footnote: out of my hand into the paper bag made to receive them, a few were spilled
on the ground. In a short time afterwards I was greatly surprised to see some of these spilled seeds in motion, being carried by the common black ant (Formica nigra) into its nest. On seeing this I hastened to get some more fresh violet seeds, and also a quantity of seeds taken from ant's granaries at Mentone, and scattered these where the other seeds had lain. After watching for half an hour a few of the violet seeds were carried in, but not one of the granary seeds was removed, though these were examined with some curiosity. I repeated this experiment twice afterwards on a distinct colony of ants of the same kind and obtained exactly the same result. I opened the nest of the former colony on the day after they had carried in the seeds, but failed to find these or any stores of other seeds.
I am inclined to think that the ants took these seeds believing them to be larvæ of other ants which they might eat; for fresh seeds of violet are not very unlike the larvæ of certain ants, as, for example, those of Atta barbara, figured at Plate I., Fig. E., p. 21, the semi-transparent membranous appendage partly concealing the seed and giving it a fleshy appearance.
I think this the more likely because on two occasions the seeds which had been carried into the nest were subsequently thrown out by the ants, which had I believe discovered their mistake.]
