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

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T' invade the corn, and to their cells convey

The plundered forage of their yellow prey.

The sable troops, along the narrow tracks,

Scarce bear the weighty burden on their backs;

Some set their shoulders to the ponderous grain;

Some guard the spoil; some lash the lagging train;

All ply their several tasks, and equal toil sustain."

ssss1 Satires I. i. 33.

ssss1 Æneid, Bk. iv. l. 402.

"The beach is covered o'er

With Trojan bands, that blacken all the shore:

On every side are seen, descending down,

Thick swarms of soldiers, loaden from the town,

Thus, in battalia, march embodied ants,

Fearful of winter, and of future wants,

"Ac velut ingentem formicæ farris acervum

Quum populant, hiemis memores, tectoque reponunt:

It nigrum campis agmen, prædamque per herbas

Convectant calle angusto; pars grandia trudunt

Obnixæ frumenta humeris; pars agmina cogunt,

Castigantque moras; opere omnis semita fervet."

Indeed, it would seem that among the people inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean it was almost as common to say "as provident as an ant" as it is with us to say "as busy as a bee." Plautusssss1 introduces a slave who, when attempting to account for the rapid disappearance of a sum of money of which he had charge, says,