I have frequently remarked that it is the seeds last collected before a fall of rain which are brought out in a sprouting condition from the nest; for I have observed in cases where I had recently scattered seeds near wild nests, that it is these which are carried out from the nest and placed to dry after a wet night; and so in the case of a nest which I kept in captivity, when a variety of different seeds had been successively supplied to the ants, it was the cabbage, lettuce, and chicory seeds, given the day before the nest was watered, that reappeared after having been carried below, and not the hemp, canary, and mixed seeds of wild plants previously strewed on the nest. It seems possible that the process, whatever it may be, to which the ants subject the seeds which are to remain dormant may require some time, and the construction of the granary chambers is doubtless a long affair, so that when unusually large supplies of grain, &c., are brought in by the workers some part of them may not find the necessary accommodation and attention. When the seeds do germinate in the nests, and it is my belief that they are usually softened and made to sprout before they are consumed by the ants, it is very curious to see how the growth is checked in its earliest stage, and how, after the radicle or fibril--the first growing root of dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous seeds--has been gnawed off, they are brought out from the nest and placed in the sun to dry, and then, after a sufficient exposure, carried below into the nest. The seeds are thus in effect malted, the starch being changed into sugar, and I have myself witnessed the avidity with which the contents of seeds thus treated are devoured by the ants. Figs. A, B, C, in Plate VI., p. 35, illustrate the manner in which the ants mutilate the germinating seeds and check their growth. Thus, at Fig. C 2 of Plate VI. a sprouting but uninjured canary seed (_Phalaris canariensis_) is drawn, magnified, and at Figs. C and C 1 the same of the natural size and magnified, after the ants have gnawed its fibril (fib.), which in this case pierces the undeveloped radicle (rad.). Fig. A 2 represents a sprouting hemp-seed, magnified,[27] and Figs. A, A 1, the same of the natural size and magnified, mutilated, the tip of the radicle being removed. [Footnote 27: Properly a nut, for it comprises the seed and the enveloping coat of the ovary. The canary seed also, spoken of above, is a grain containing a seed.] At Figs. B, B 1, B 2, the same process is shown in the case of a small wild pea.