Only three of the eighteen
different known species of honey bees of northern Brazil have a sting. A
peculiar phenomenon in the life of certain ants has always been
problematical, but now it finds also its least forced explanation. It is
well known that there are different grain-gathering species of ants. The
seeds of grasses and other plants are often preserved for years in their
little magazines, without germinating. A very small red ant, which drags
grains of wheat and oats into its dwellings, lives in India. These ants
are so small that eight or twelve of them have to drag on one grain with
the greatest exertion. They travel in two separate ranks over smooth or
rough ground, just as it comes, and even up and down steps, at the same
regular pace. They have often to travel with their booty more than a
thousand meters, to reach their communal storehouse. The renowned
investigator Moggridge repeatedly observed that when the ants were
prevented from reaching their magazines of grain, the seeds begun to
sprout. The same was the case in abandoned magazines of grain. Hence the
ants know how to prevent the sprouting of the grains, but the capacity
for sprouting is not destroyed. The renowned English investigator John
Lubbock, who communicates this and similar facts in his work entitled
"Ants, Bees, and Wasps," adds that it is not yet known in what way the
ants prevent the sprouting of the collected grains.
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