Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/83

 making at the same time a partial recapitulation of what has gone before.

We have learned in the first place that the ancients had facts on their side when they said that the ant is one of the very few creatures which lays up supplies of food sufficient to last for months, or even perhaps, as Bochart says, for a whole year; and though we cannot quite accept the statement that "there is no animal except men, mice, and ants, that stores its food," they were right in saying that the habit is a most singular and interesting one. It is probable, however, that the old writers may have fallen into the error of supposing that all ants were harvesters, though the truth appears to be, that even in hot climates, it is only a very small number of species that are so. The fact that certain ants in Southern Europe do store large quantities of sound seed in damp soil, and check their tendency to germinate, may be thought to favour the possibility of the existence of those deeply hidden supplies of seed which, though they have never been detected, are popularly supposed to explain the sudden appearance of the crops of weeds on soil newly brought out from great depths.

The argument may be stated thus: seeds remain for months undecayed, and still capable of germination, at depths varying from one to twenty inches below the surface of the soil in certain ants' nests, why should they not lie hidden for indefinite periods in ordinary soil?

To answer this positively, experiments should be