Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/85

 again. It is in this condition that the ants like best to eat them, as I have proved by experiments among my captives.

As the ants often travel some distance from their nest in search of food, they may certainly be said to be, in a limited sense, agents in the dispersal of seeds, for they not unfrequently drop seeds by the way, which they fail to find again, and also among the refuse matter which forms the kitchen midden in front of their entrances, a few sound seeds are often present, and these in many instances grow up and form a little colony of stranger plants. This presence of seedlings foreign to the wild ground in which the nest is usually placed, is quite a feature where there are old established colonies of Atta barbara, as is shown at Fig. A in Plate I., p. 21, where young plants of fumitory, chickweed, cranesbill, Arabis Thaliana, &c., may be seen on or near the rubbish heap.

It would be interesting to make a list of all these ant-imported plants, and I think it quite likely that, if a sufficiently large number of nests were visited, some seedlings of cultivated species might be found amongst them, for we have seen that garden plants are frequently put under contribution.

One can imagine cases in which the ants during the lapse of long periods of time might pass the seeds of plants from colony to colony, until after a journey of many stages, the descendants of the ant-borne seedlings might find themselves transported to places far removed from the original home of their immediate ancestors. It is a true cause, but at the same time it may be one which has, like many true causes, exceedingly small effects. One can scarcely look at the teeming population of an