After the appearance of a brief notice of a communication which I sent in the winter of 1871-72 to the London Entomological Society, announcing the fact that certain ants harvest seeds in a systematic way at Mentone, two papers were published, in which confirmatory evidence of the existence of the habit in other parts of the world was set forth—one by Mr. Buchanan White, and the other by the late Mr. Horne.
Mr. Horne's account of his observations was published in Hardwicke's Science Gossip, No. 89, p. 109 (for May 1, 1872), and runs as follows:[42]—
"My notes carry me to the far East, where I have often watched this most interesting class of insects, and briefly recorded my observations—unfortunately cut short by illness, and the necessity of return to Europe, which must be my apology for their want of completeness.
[42] I omit the preliminary portion, in which my observations are erroneously stated to have been made at Nismes and Capri.
"But before transcribing, I would remind my general reader that all ants may be seen carrying off food to their nests for present consumption, and that this food consists of a great variety of substances. This is disposed of inside the said nest, being often masticated, and the juice extracted by the workers, and then given in an inspissated form from their mouths to the young grubs, which are in general tended by their nurses with the greatest care. It is indeed very curious to watch this feeding process; but to proceed.
"Under date Nov. 7th, 1866, I find in my natural history note-book as follows:—Mainpuri. This morning as I was walking across the 'Oosur,' or waste plain, where it was very sandy, being cut into small ravines, and clothed only here and there with fine grass disposed in clumps, thus forming little hillocks of sand blown by the wind, and arrested in its course by the grass, I came across a long line of ants, travelling four deep, some coming empty, and others laden each with one grass-seed, on their way home.
"I followed up the procession to the nest, which was subterranean, and at the mouth of which on the level plain there was no trace of elevation caused by the soil brought up from below, owing to the habit of these ants of taking each grain of sand to some distance along their road, and depositing it on one side or the other.
"There may have been five or six entrances to the nest, in and out of which a prodigious number of ants were passing, the species of which has been described by Dr. Jerdon. They were of a medium size, shortish bodies, and of a reddish-brown colour—Pseudomyrma rufo-nigra, Jerdon. Around the mouth of the nest, forming a circle of perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, was a space beaten flat, and kept clear by these said ants, from which radiated in every direction thirteen roads, each about four inches in width for about thirty to forty yards, when they branched off and became narrower, being ultimately lost amongst the grass roots. These paths were fairly straight; they did not cut through elevations, but went round them.
"From a careful examination it appeared that they had been cleared of all obstacles, such as small stones, twigs, &c., but that their smoothness resulted only from the tread of countless feet.
"The bearers of burdens took the seeds into the nest, which I did not dig up, and certainly stored them there, after having prepared them, probably by the removal of a portion of the outer husk. Of these husks there were large collections near the entrances to the nest, all carefully set aside by the ants.