It is interesting now to recall a few of the allusions to the harvesting ants made by ancient authors, some of which contain tolerably accurate accounts of what was to them a familiar sight or a universally accepted fact. The passages in Proverbs[3] are the following: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard: consider her ways and be wise; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." "The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." Hesiod[4] speaks of the time "When the provident one (the ant) harvests the grain." ὅτἐ τ ιδρις σωρὀυ ἁμαται. [Footnote 3: vi. 6-8 and xxx. 25.] [Footnote 4: Works and Days, 776.] Horace[5] also alludes to the foresight of the ant, who is "haud ignara ac non incauta futuri." Virgil[6] compares the Trojans hastening their departure to harvesting ants, and the passage has been thus rendered by Dryden:-- "The beach is covered o'er With Trojan bands, that blacken all the shore: On every side are seen, descending down, Thick swarms of soldiers, loaden from the town, Thus, in battalia, march embodied ants, Fearful of winter, and of future wants, T' invade the corn, and to their cells convey The plundered forage of their yellow prey. The sable troops, along the narrow tracks, Scarce bear the weighty burden on their backs; Some set their shoulders to the ponderous grain; Some guard the spoil; some lash the lagging train; All ply their several tasks, and equal toil sustain." [Footnote 5: Satires I. i. 33.] [Footnote 6: Æneid, Bk. iv. l. 402. "Ac velut ingentem formicæ farris acervum Quum populant, hiemis memores, tectoque reponunt: It nigrum campis agmen, prædamque per herbas Convectant calle angusto; pars grandia trudunt Obnixæ frumenta humeris; pars agmina cogunt, Castigantque moras; opere omnis semita fervet." ] Indeed, it would seem that among the people inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean it was almost as common to say "as provident as an ant" as it is with us to say "as busy as a bee." Plautus[7] introduces a slave who, when attempting to account for the rapid disappearance of a sum of money of which he had charge, says, "Confit cito Quam si tu objicias formicis papaverem." "It vanished in a twinkling, Just like poppy seed thrown to the ants." [Footnote 7: Trinummus, Act ii. sc. 4, l. 7.] Any one who has seen the eagerness with which certain southern ants seize upon seeds thrown in their path will appreciate the correctness of this simile.