John Traherne Moggridge

“ That so young and weak a creature should be able to excavate a tube in the earth many times its own length, and know how to make a perfect miniature of the nest of its parents, seems to be a fact which has scarcely a parallel in nature. ”

“ We have learned in the first place that the ancients had facts on their side when they said that the ant is one of the very few creatures which lays up supplies of food sufficient to last for months, or even perhaps, as Bochart says, for a whole year; and though we cannot quite accept the statement that "there is no animal except men, mice, and ants, that stores its food," [36] they were right in saying that the habit is a most singular and interesting one. ”

“ Indeed, throughout the whole of their captivity they seemed to be perfectly contented with their lot and free from disease, remarkably few ants dying or appearing feeble, and as far as the limited space would permit they reproduced most of the habits which I had noted as belonging to them in a wild state, such as the formation of a rubbish heap; bringing out refuse materials, gnawed and empty seed-coats, the ends of radicles, and root fibres which had penetrated their nest, and laying sprouted seeds in the air to dry after having gnawed off the radicle in order to arrest their growth. ”

“ I greatly envy those who are able to travel, and who have it in their power to investigate the habits of these creatures at several widely separated points; for there seems every probability that other new types of nest remain to be detected in warm climates, some of which may perhaps exceed those we have been here studying in beauty of workmanship and adaptation; it is at least certain that an abundant harvest of interesting facts in the life history of trap-door spiders remains yet to be gathered in. ”

“ It then descends the stem, patiently backing and turning upwards again as often as the clumsy and disproportionate burden becomes wedged between the thickly set stalks, and joins the line of its companions on their way to the nest. ”

“ More frequently, when the spider finds that resistance is hopeless and sees the earth crumbling in, she drops to the bottom of her nest and lies there helpless, with her legs folded against her body like an embryonic creature; some, however, more savage than their neighbours, fly out and strike at the intruder with their fangs. ”

“ As I was aware this fact militated against the observations of entomologists in Europe, I was careful not to deceive myself by confounding the seeds of a Panicum with the pupæ of the insect. Each ant was charged with a single seed, but as it was too weighty for many of them, and as the strongest had some difficulty in scaling the perpendicular sides of the cylindrical hole leading to the nest below, many were the falls of the weaker ants with their burdens from near the summit to the bottom. ”

“ It seems to me that the ants displayed extraordinary intelligence in having thus at a moment's notice devised a plan by which the superabundant number of workers could be employed at one time without coming in one another's way. The soil contained in the jar was of course less than a tenth part of that comprised within the limits of an ordinary nest, while the number of workers was probably more than a third of the total number belonging to the colony. ”

“ But if you take it away entirely, she turns down the edges to close the aperture as best she can, and that she does hurriedly, without waiting for night. The light seems to offend her so much that, if exposed to the full day, she remains so stupefied as to appear dead, nor does she move even if shaken; on the contrary, she constantly stops still and holds herself with her feet pressed against her body. ”

“ I have seen the remains of ants at the bottom of the tube of trap-door spider nests, and watched a hunting spider, Lycosa, capture a large black ant (Formica pubescens) , by entangling it in threads, which it deftly spun about its limbs, while running rapidly round the struggling victim in a circle, and dodging out of the way of the ant's mandibles. In England one may frequently see ants caught in the spiders' webs among the rose-bushes, and Mr. Blackwall says, in his Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland, that Theridion riparium lives principally on ants. ”

“ I was not then aware that towards the middle of last century the ancient belief, dating from the time of Solomon, that ants habitually show forethought and husbandry in the collection of supplies of seeds and grain had begun to be called in question, and that our most able observers, such as Huber, Gould, Kirby and Spence, and at the present day Mr. Frederick Smith, had by close scrutiny of the habits of these creatures proved that, wherever personal investigation had enabled them to put the matter to proof, no trace of harvesting was found. ”

“ Why it is that one ant should require stores of food in the winter of which other ants have no need, is one of the many problems which only patient watching and careful comparison and experiment can help us to solve. ”

“ Now these excellent creatures, when they have returned home, and stored their granaries with wheat and barley, bore through each grain of seed in the middle; that which falls off in the process becomes a meal for the ants, and the remainder is unfertile. This these worthy housekeepers do, lest when the rains come the seeds should sprout, as they would do if left entire, and thus the ants should come to want. So we see that the ants have good share in the gifts of nature, in this respect as well as others. ”

“ Besides this, at intervals, combats might be seen taking place, one ant seizing the free end of a seed carried by another, and endeavouring to wrench it away, and then frequently, as neither would let go, the stronger ant would drag seed and opponent towards its nest. At times other ants would interfere and seize one of the combatants and endeavour to drag it away, this often resulting in terrible mutilations, and especially in the loss of the abdomen, which would be torn off while the jaws of the victim retained their indomitable bull-dog grip upon the seed. ”

“ It is not a little surprising to see that the ants bring in not only seeds of large size and fallen grain, but also green capsules, the torn stalks of which show that they have been freshly gathered from the plant. ”

“ The cork nests are the simplest form of nest, with the exception of those described above from Jamaica, and have constituted, up to the present time, the only type known in Europe. Their chief claims to our admiration lie in the perfection of workmanship which the doors usually exhibit, and the marvellous concealment which they afford when closed. These doors as a rule fit so tightly [thanks to the accurate adjustment of their sloping sides to the bevelled lip of the tube which receives them,] that they afford a certain amount of mechanical resistance, even when the spider is away. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have diligently turned over piles of stone, greatly to the annoyance of many little scorpions, but have never secured, or even seen, another male spider. This is the more to be regretted as the species of trap-door spider are much better characterized in the male than in the female sex, the bulb-like enlargement which is found at the end of the palpi in the former taking on a great variety of forms, each of which is distinctive. ”

“ As the ants often travel some distance from their nest in search of food, they may certainly be said to be, in a limited sense, agents in the dispersal of seeds, for they not unfrequently drop seeds by the way, which they fail to find again, and also among the refuse matter which forms the kitchen midden in front of their entrances, a few sound seeds are often present, and these in many instances grow up and form a little colony of stranger plants. ”

“ It has always been supposed that ants, from the delicate nature of their mouth organs, were only able to lap up liquids or to swallow very soft animal tissues, and one of the great difficulties in the way of admitting that they might collect seeds for food, lay in the apparent impossibility of their eating such hard substances. But it has generally been overlooked that not only are all seeds soft when moistened with water and ready to grow, but also that there are certain kinds of seeds the contents of which are naturally soft. ”

“ I have observed on more than one occasion that when in digging into an ant's nest I have thrown out an elater larva, the ants would cluster round it and direct it towards some small opening in the soil, which it would quickly enlarge and disappear down. ”

“ Lady Parker has also told me of some black trap-door spiders which were so common about Paramatta, near Sydney, in Australia, that scarcely any one paid attention to them, and which might habitually be seen out on the garden paths in the daytime near their holes, to which they would run in all haste when alarmed. The eye of the passer-by was attracted by the open doors, which were about the size of a sixpence, and fall over backwards when the spider makes her exit, but when closed, on her return, they fit so neatly that it is extremely difficult to detect them. ”

“ The lid is continuous with the tube for about a third of its circumference, and this part may be called the hinge, though it presents no structure peculiar to itself; it is simply bent at a right angle, as is manifest, if a nest be cut longitudinally through with scissors, the incision passing through the midst of the lid. The mode of construction, I judge, from examination of many nests, to be this. The spider digs a cylindrical hole in the moist earth, with her jointed fangs or mandibles, carrying out the fragments as they are dislodged. ”

“ There can be little doubt that any naturalist who will take the pains to note the habits of ants on the shores of the Mediterranean through June, July, August, and September, might collect a most interesting series of observations on harvesting and other species, and add to, and perhaps modify, those which my limited opportunities have enabled me to make. ”

“ The aperture is closed by a little door or valve (a) , which, having its hinge in the upper part and a little on one side, falls by its own weight, and fits itself exactly to the opening. The outer surface of the wicket is covered with earth, cemented by the glue of the spider, so that it is rendered imperceptible to common eyes, and the industrious little creature takes care to leave around the aperture a kind of rim, to which the door fitting closely, leaves no passage for any animal, nor does it show its edges. ”

“ Occasionally one or two may be detected carrying a dead insect, or crushed land-shell, the corolla of a flower, a fragment of stick, or leaf, but I have never seen aphides brought in to the nest or visited by this ant or by Atta structor.
It sometimes happens that an ant has manifestly made a bad selection, and is told on its return that what it has brought home with much pains is no better than rubbish, and is hustled out of the nest, and forced to throw its burden away. ”

“ I have little doubt that the seed stores of the ants in botanic and other gardens, where rare plants are cultivated in southern Europe and in warm climates generally, contain samples taken from the fruits of a great many of the rarer and more interesting species as well as of the weeds and native plants. ”

“ The ants die very quickly in pure spirit of wine, and they can afterwards, even after the lapse of months or more, be pinned out in the cabinet after having been washed in warm water. In examining the mouth organs of an ant in order to determine by the aid of books to what genus it belongs, it is best to relax the parts by first washing away the spirit of wine, and then leaving the specimen for a day or more in a stopper bottle partly filled with finely chopped laurel leaves. ”

“ The fact that certain ants in Southern Europe do store large quantities of sound seed in damp soil, and check their tendency to germinate, may be thought to favour the possibility of the existence of those deeply hidden supplies of seed which, though they have never been detected, are popularly supposed to explain the sudden appearance of the crops of weeds on soil newly brought out from great depths. ”

“ The West Indian nests are of a much tougher and coarser texture than those which I have seen in Europe, and vary somewhat in the shape of their tube, which is curved or straight, and sometimes has near its lower extremity a short spur-shaped enlargement, giving to the whole a ludicrous resemblance to a stocking, of which this spur is the heel. ”

“ As far, therefore, as I know at present, the cork type of nest is the only one which is widely spread, and which is constructed by spiders of more than one species. For, while the single-door wafer, and the branched and unbranched double-door nests are each the work of one particular spider, we see that nests of the cork type are made by spiders of six distinct species, belonging to at least three genera. ”

“ One can imagine cases in which the ants during the lapse of long periods of time might pass the seeds of plants from colony to colony, until after a journey of many stages, the descendants of the ant-borne seedlings might find themselves transported to places far removed from the original home of their immediate ancestors. ”

“ A knowledge of the fact that ants in warm climates accumulate large and very varied stores of seeds retaining their power of germination, might at times be of service to travellers, by enabling them to obtain, by a stroke or two of the spade, an interesting collection of the seeds and the seed-like fruits of the country, when time and opportunity failed for obtaining them in a more satisfactory manner. ”