Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/37

 sponds with the curious account given by Ælian of the manner in which the spikelets of corn are severed and thrown down "to the people below," [Greek: tô dêmô tô katô].

If the incoming and weight-carrying column of ants be closely examined it will be found that though the great majority of workers are bringing seeds in some form to the nest, a few are burdened with other and more miscellaneous materials.

Occasionally one or two may be detected carrying a dead insect, or crushed land-shell, the corolla of a flower, a fragment of stick, or leaf, but I have never seen aphides brought in to the nest or visited by this ant or by Atta structor.

It sometimes happens that an ant has manifestly made a bad selection, and is told on its return that what it has brought home with much pains is no better than rubbish, and is hustled out of the nest, and forced to throw its burden away. In order to try whether these creatures were not fallible like other mortals, I one day took out with me a little packet of grey and white porcelain beads, and scattered these in the path of a harvesting train. They had scarcely lain a minute on the earth before one of the largest workers seized upon a bead, and with some difficulty clipped it with its mandibles and trotted back at a great pace to the nest. I waited for a little while, my attention being divided between the other ants who were vainly endeavouring to remove the beads, and the entrance down which the worker had disappeared, and then left the spot. On my return in an hour's time, I found the ants passing