[Footnote 10: Id. lib. xvi. 15.] Aldrovandus, writing in the sixteenth century, speaks[11] of the ants as storing seed and of their gnawing, "illud principium seu acumen grani, è quo germen emitti à tritico solet"--that is to say, the radicle. But it is not clear whether Aldrovandus treats of what he has himself seen or refers to the account given by a certain Bishop, Simon Mariolus, who, he says "in his most pleasant and learned work, introduces a philosopher as taking his walks abroad and examining an ant's nest with its seed store," &c. [Footnote 11: Aldrovandus, De Insectis, lib. v. (de Formicis).] 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. The following translation from, the Greek original[12] bears in a much higher degree the impress of personal and accurate observation. [Footnote 12: For this translation and all the foregoing extracts from ancient and mediæval authors I have to thank my brother, M. W. Moggridge.] Μὑρμηκες καἰ Τἑττιξ: The Ants and the Grasshopper. Once in winter time the ants were sunning their seed-store which had been soaked by the rains. A grasshopper saw them at this, and being famished and ready to perish, he ran up and begged for a bit. To the ant's question, "What were you doing in summer, idling, that you have to beg now?" he answered, "I lived for pleasure then, piping and pleasing travellers." "O, ho!" said they, with a grin, "dance in winter, if you pipe in summer. Store seed for the future when you can, and never mind playing and pleasing travellers."[13] It would be easy to multiply instances in which the older authors allude to this habit, but enough have been given to afford a sample of what may easily be found repeated elsewhere, and I will now quote a few instances which illustrate the more modern belief, utterly opposed to that so long maintained by the ancients. [Footnote 13: Æsopicæ Fabulæ (Tauchnitz edition), p. 92.] Messrs. Kirby and Spence[14] discuss the matter in the following terms:--"When we find the writers of all nations and ages unite in affirming that, having deprived it of the power of vegetating, ants store up grain in their nests, we feel disposed to give larger credit to their assertions. Writers in general have taken ... (this) ... for granted. But when observers of nature began to examine the manners and economy of these creatures more narrowly, it was found, at least with respect to the European species of ants, that no such hoards of grain were made by them; and, in fact, that they had no magazines in their nests in which provisions of any kinds were stored up." [Footnote 14: Entomology, ed. 7 (1856), p. 313.]