Читать книгу Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders. Notes and Observations on Their Habits and Dwellings онлайн

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Next I must, if possible, obtain conclusive evidence as to the use to which the ants put the seeds thus collected; whether they eat them or turn them to some other account. Again I must observe whether the seed-collecting ants also search for aphides, and what other kinds of food they obtain. Then another very interesting question remained—namely, whether all southern ants uniformly collect seed, and to the same extent, or whether the habit is peculiar to certain species.

These, and many other subjects of inquiry connected with them, readily suggested themselves to my mind, and it will now be my endeavour to show how far I have been able to throw light upon them.

The habits recorded in the following pages refer exclusively, unless special notice is given to the contrary, to Atta barbara, the black ant represented on Plate I. We have, as far as I am aware, only four bonâ fide harvesting ants on the Riviera—namely, Atta barbara under two forms, the one wholly black the other red-headed; Atta structor, a creature very similar to barbara, but of a claret-brown colour; and a minute yellow ant, the large workers of which have gigantic heads, named Pheidole (or Atta) megacephala.