Here I observed what appeared to be a new mode of operation. The workers, in several cases, left the point at which they had begun a cutting, ascended the blade, and passed as far out toward the point as possible. The blade was thus borne downward, and as the ant swayed up and down it really seemed that she was taking advantage of the leverage thus gained, and was bringing the augmented force to bear upon the fracture. In two or three cases there appeared to be a division of labour; that is to say, while the cutter at the roots kept on with her work, another ant climbed the grass blade and applied the power at the opposite end of the lever. This position may have been quite accidental, but it certainly had the appearance of a voluntary co-operation. I was sorry not to be able to establish this last inference by a series of observations, as the facts were only observed in this one nest. The observation of Moggridge, to which I have alluded as in some measure rendering support to the foregoing, is as follows. Speaking of European harvesters which he kept in an artificial nest for the purposes of close observation, he says:-- I was also in this way able to see for myself much that I otherwise could not have seen. Thus I was able to watch the operation of removing roots which had pierced through their galleries, belonging to seedling plants growing on the surface, and which was performed by two ants, one pulling at the free end of the root, and the other gnawing at its fibres where the strain was greatest, until at length it gave way. And again,-- Two ants sometimes combine their efforts, when one stations itself near the base of the peduncle, and gnaws it at the point of greatest tension, while the other hauls upon and twists it. . . . I have occasionally seen ants engaged in cutting the capsules of certain plants, drop them, and allow their companions below to carry them away. Lastly, the statements of these three observers taken together serve to render credible the following quotation from Bingley,[43] who says that in Captain Cook's expedition in New South Wales ants were seen by Sir Joseph Banks and others--