Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/47

Rh ful of earth taken from this nest, and lifted with care so as to leave the seeds almost in situ. Others were massed together in horizontal chambers, having a concave roof and a flat and carefully prepared floor.

The texture of the floor usually differs markedly from that of the surrounding soil, and the fine grains of silex and mica which are selected for its construction are more or less cemented together, so that the floor will sometimes part, when dry, from the soil about it, as caked and dry mud separates from a gravel path (see Plate III.).

On carefully examining a quantity of the seeds, grain, and minute dry fruits taken from the granaries, I found that they had been gathered from the following plants: fumitory (Fumaria Capreolata, &c.), amaranth (Amaranthus Blitum, &c.), Setaria, and three other species of grasses, honeywort (Alyssum maritimum), Veronica, and from four unrecognised species, one of which was a pea-flower. There were therefore in this nest seeds, &c., which had been taken from more than twelve distinct species of plants, belonging to at least seven separate families. The granaries lay from an inch and a half to six inches below the surface and were all horizontal. They were of various sizes and shapes, the average granary being about as large as a gentleman's gold watch.

I was greatly surprised to find that the seeds, though quite moist, showed no trace of germination, and this was the more astonishing as the self-sown seeds of the same kinds as those detected here, such as fumitory for instance, were then coming up abundantly in gardens and on terraces. The seeds of Odontites lutea afford a curious test of the presence of