Page:Supplement to harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (IA supplementtoharv00mogg).pdf/25

 *rence to the claims of the poor upon these ant stores. If the heaps of grain were found among the standing corn before the reapers reached the spot or while they were still at work, the proprietor might claim them without any hesitation; but, if they were discovered after the passing of the reapers, then it was conceivable that the ants, which during the whole time had never ceased their labours, might have collected some of the grain from the fallen ears of corn which lay upon the ground, and were the property of the gleaners. These grains would be those which the ants had collected most recently, and would therefore lie on the surface of each granary heap. Thus it was settled that the upper portion of each heap should belong to the poor, and the lower, that collected from the standing crop, to the proprietor.

We may perhaps laugh at the notion of critically discussing and legislating upon such a subject, and think that such a pitiful matter might have been allowed to pass among those minima about which even the Jewish law need not care.

Be this as it may, it is interesting for us to learn that a custom of the kind had its place among the recognised traditions of the people, and that the harvesting ants of Syria had earned a place in these records by amassing stores of sufficient size, and so disposed as to make them worth collecting.

This reminds us of what M. Germain de St. Pierre has related (Ants and Spiders, p. 29) of the extent of the depredations made among the corn crops at Hyères by these ants; and doubtless other observers who have opportunities for watching the ants