Page:Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders. Notes and observations on their habits and dwellings (IA harvestingantstr00mogg).pdf/87

 chambers, granaries, and almost all their galleries away from the glass, and in the interior of the earth, though I tried to tempt them to work in parts more accessible to sight by swathing the jar in flannel.

There is much to be learned, I do not doubt, about the friends and enemies of harvesting ants; and another great desideratum is further information as to the parts of the world in which they are found and what causes may be assigned for the limitation of the habit.

What is the geographical distribution of the harvesting species, and what the geographical distribution of the habit? For instance, to quote Mr. F. Smith, Atta structor, though not "found in England, is scattered over a great part of Europe, having occurred in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Dalmatia, and Switzerland; it has also been found in Algeria" and Syria; and A. barbara is almost as widely spread. May we then conclude that these species are harvesters wherever they are found, and that they store seed in Germany and Switzerland as freely as they do on the shores of the Mediterranean? If this be really so, then Huber, whose attention was specially directed to this point, and a host of laborious and scrupulous observers of the Continent, have had the very fact under their eyes, though they have been at considerable pains expressly to deny it. I cannot think that this is likely, but it is a matter which could easily be settled by those who travel or reside in Germany, Northern France, or Switzerland.

It seems to me more probable, however, that they do store in the south, but not in the north; for all the