Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/28

 following translation from, the Greek original bears in a much higher degree the impress of personal and accurate observation.

[Greek: Myrmêkes kai Tettix]: The Ants and the Grasshopper. Once in winter time the ants were sunning their seed-*store which had been soaked by the rains. A grasshopper saw them at this, and being famished and ready to perish, he ran up and begged for a bit. To the ant's question, "What were you doing in summer, idling, that you have to beg now?" he answered, "I lived for pleasure then, piping and pleasing travellers." "O, ho!" said they, with a grin, "dance in winter, if you pipe in summer. Store seed for the future when you can, and never mind playing and pleasing travellers." It would be easy to multiply instances in which the older authors allude to this habit, but enough have been given to afford a sample of what may easily be found repeated elsewhere, and I will now quote a few instances which illustrate the more modern belief, utterly opposed to that so long maintained by the ancients.

Messrs. Kirby and Spence discuss the matter in the following terms:—"When we find the writers of all nations and ages unite in affirming that, having deprived it of the power of vegetating, ants store up grain in their nests, we feel disposed to give larger credit to their assertions. Writers in general have taken (this) for granted. But when observers of nature began to examine the manners and economy of these