“They do better, in my opinion, who observe the Pismire, and grow rich by following his manners in labor, industry, rest, and study. We read of Midas that he was the richest King of all the West, and when he was a boy, the Pismires carryed grains of wheat into his mouth while he slept, and so foreshowed without doubt that he should be endowed with the Pismire’s prudence, and should by his labour and frugality, gain so much riches, that he should be called the Golden boy of fortune, and the Darling of prosperity. Ælianus. And when the Ants did devour and eat up the live serpent of Tiberius Cæsar, which he so dearly loved, did they not thereby give him sufficient warning that he should take heed to himself for fear of the multitude, by whom he was afterwards cruelly murthered? Suetonius.”[509]
Of the wars and battles of the Ants, now so familiar from the writings of Huber and others, one of the oldest records is that given by Æneas Sylvius, who afterward became Pope Pius II., of an engagement contested with obstinacy by a great and a small species, on the trunk of a pear-tree. “This action,” he states, “was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity.” Another engagement of the same description is recorded by Olaus Magnus, as having happened previous to the expulsion of Christiern the Second, of Sweden, and the smallest species, having been victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their
own soldiers that had been killed, while they left those of their adversaries a prey to the birds.[510]
Alexander Ross, in his Appendix to the Arcana Microcosmi, p. 219, tells us: “That the cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians, and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians, in which about thirty thousand men were slain, were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of Emmets (Ants).”[511]
Ants were used in divination by the Greeks, and generally foretold good.[512] They were also considered an attribute of Ceres.[513]
The following extract is from an English North-Country chap-book, entitled the Royal Dream Book: “To dream of Ants or Bees denotes that you will live in a great town or city, or in a large family, and that you will be industrious, happy, well married, and have a large family.”[514] The Ant and the Bee are common figures to express these predictions.
I heard a mother once say to her child, “Never destroy Ants, for they are fairies, and will so bewitch our cows that they will give no milk.” This superstition prevails in particular about Washington and in Virginia.
Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, in an interesting article on the Ants of India, remarks that she has often witnessed the Hindoos, male and female, depositing small portions of sugar near Ants’ nests as acts of charity to commence the day with.
With the natives of India, this lady also tells us, it is a common opinion that wherever the Red-ants colonize, prosperity attends the owner of that house.[515]
We read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that “the natives of Cambaia and Malabar will go out of the path if they light on an Ant-hill, lest they might happily treade on some of them.”[516]