But now it is
demonstrated that here also it is only the formic acid, whose
preservative influence goes so far that it can make seed incapable of
germination for a determinate time or continuously.
It may be mentioned that we have also among us a species of ant which
lives on seeds, and stores these up. This is our _Lasius niger_, which
carries seeds of _Viola_ into its nests, and, as Wittmack has
communicated recently to the Sitzungsberichte der gesellschaft
naturforschender freunde zu Berlin, does the same with the seeds of
_Veronica hederaefolia_.
Syke states in his account of an Indian ant, _Pheidole providens_, that
this species collects a great store of grass-seeds. But he observed that
the ants brought their store of grain into the open air to dry it after
the monsoon storms. From this it appears that the preservative effect of
the formic acid is destroyed by great moisture, and hence this drying
process. So that among the bees the honey which is stored for winter
use, and among the ants the stores of grain which serve for food, are
preserved by one and the same fluid, formic acid.
EDITORIAL NOTE.
This same theory has been suggested many times by our most advanced
American bee-keepers. It has been hinted that this same formic acid was
what made honey a poison to many people, and that the sharp sting of
some honey, notably that from bass wood or linden, originated in this
acid from the poison sac.
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