Alexander Ross, in his Appendix to the Arcana Microcosmi, p. 219, tells us: “That the cruel battels between the Venetians and Insubrians, and that also between the Liegeois and the Burgundians, in which about thirty thousand men were slain, were presignified by a great combat between two swarms of Emmets (Ants).”[511] Ants were used in divination by the Greeks, and generally foretold good.[512] They were also considered an attribute of Ceres.[513] The following extract is from an English North-Country chap-book, entitled the Royal Dream Book: “To dream of Ants or Bees denotes that you will live in a great town or city, or in a large family, and that you will be industrious, happy, well married, and have a large family.”[514] The Ant and the Bee are common figures to express these predictions. I heard a mother once say to her child, “Never destroy Ants, for they are fairies, and will so bewitch our cows that they will give no milk.” This superstition prevails in particular about Washington and in Virginia. Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, in an interesting article on the Ants of India, remarks that she has often witnessed the Hindoos, male and female, depositing small portions of sugar near Ants’ nests as acts of charity to commence the day with. With the natives of India, this lady also tells us, it is a common opinion that wherever the Red-ants colonize, prosperity attends the owner of that house.[515] We read in Purchas’s _Pilgrims_, that “the natives of Cambaia and Malabar will go out of the path if they light on an Ant-hill, lest they might happily treade on some of them.”[516] Other insects, as will be noticed in the course of this volume, are looked upon by these people with the same respect. Moufet says: “In Isthmus the priests sacrificed Pismires to the sun, either because they thought the sun the most beautiful, and therefore they would offer unto him the most beautiful creature, or the most wise, as seeing all things, and therefore they offered unto him the wisest creature.”[517] In the twenty-seventh chapter of the Koran, which was revealed at Mecca, and entitled the Ant, we find, among other strange things, an odd story of the Ant, which has therefore given name to the chapter. It is as follows: “And his armies were gathered together unto Solomon, consisting of genii, and men, and birds; and they were led in distant bands, until they came to the valley of Ants.[518] And an Ant, seeing the hosts approaching, said, O Ants, enter ye into your habitations, lest Solomon and his army tread you under foot, and perceive it not. And Solomon smiled, laughing at her words, and said, O Lord, excite me that I may be thankful for thy favour, wherewith thou hast favoured me, and my parents; and that I may do that which is right, and well pleasing unto thee: and introduce me, through thy mercy, into paradise, among my servants, the righteous.”[519]