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ssss1 Ælian, De Naturâ Animalium, ii. 25.

ssss1 Ælian, De Nat. Anim., lib. vi. chap. xliii.

ssss1 Id. lib. xvi. 15.

Aldrovandus, writing in the sixteenth century, speaksssss1 of the ants as storing seed and of their gnawing, "illud principium seu acumen grani, è quo germen emitti à tritico solet"—that is to say, the radicle. But it is not clear whether Aldrovandus treats of what he has himself seen or refers to the account given by a certain Bishop, Simon Mariolus, who, he says "in his most pleasant and learned work, introduces a philosopher as taking his walks abroad and examining an ant's nest with its seed store," &c.

ssss1 Aldrovandus, De Insectis, lib. v. (de Formicis).

The lively fable of the ant and the grasshopper, as related by La Fontaine, has done much towards familiarizing and keeping alive in the minds of many of us the idea that ants habitually provide stores against the winter; but we must not infer from this narration that the witty French author had ever cared to examine for himself whether the fable, which he borrowed from Æsop, had its foundation in fact or not. The following translation from, the Greek originalssss1 bears in a much higher degree the impress of personal and accurate observation.