. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. epeated the accounts ofthe ancients. The entomologists of the early portion of the last cen-tury, however, failing to find any harvestersamong the ants of temperate Europe, beganto doubt, or even to deny their skepticism is much in evidence in theworks of Gould (1747), Latreille (1802),Huber (1810), Gene (1845), Kirby andSpence( 1846), and Blanchard( 1871). The sub-ject was taken up, however, by Sykes (1829)and Jerdon (1851) in India, by Moggridge( 1873) in southern France and by Buckley(18610), Lincecum (1862), McCook (18770,18
. Ants; their structure, development and behavior. epeated the accounts ofthe ancients. The entomologists of the early portion of the last cen-tury, however, failing to find any harvestersamong the ants of temperate Europe, beganto doubt, or even to deny their skepticism is much in evidence in theworks of Gould (1747), Latreille (1802),Huber (1810), Gene (1845), Kirby andSpence( 1846), and Blanchard( 1871). The sub-ject was taken up, however, by Sykes (1829)and Jerdon (1851) in India, by Moggridge( 1873) in southern France and by Buckley(18610), Lincecum (1862), McCook (18770,1879*:), Morris (1880) and Mrs. Treat (1878)in the United States. These authors suc-ceeded in showing that the ancient accountswere correct. For a detailed history of thesubject and for extracts from the variousauthors of antiquity, the reader is referred toBocharts Hierozoicon and to the works of Moggridge and McCook. Here I shall confine FIG. 151. Diagram . of nest of Oxyopomyr- myself to the recent observations, considering mex santschii. (Sant-. schi.)text. Explanation in first, in all brevity, the Old World harvestersand concluding with a somewhat fuller ac-count of our American species. Sykes was the first of modern observers to describe the storing ofseeds by ants. He saw Phcidolc proiidcns at Poona, India, bringinggrass seeds, which had been moistened by the rains, out of the nestsand exposing them to the sun to dry. Jerdon confirmed these observa-tions on Ph. providens, Ph. diffnsa and Solenopsis riifa, a subspecies ofthe tropicopolitan S. geniinafa. He saw the ants not only drying theirpiles of seeds but also collecting them from different plants and storing 270 ANTS. them in the nests, although lie was unable to ascertain the purpose ofthese activities. All <lu1>t was removed, however, by Moggridgesexcellent work, which was carried out at .Mcnlone in 1X71 and iSjj onMessor hurbanis and stntctor, the very species that had been ob>crvedby the ancients, lie opene
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectants, bookyear1910
