This, then, is the case _for_ the harvesting ant, as we may say; for if these things be true they are certainly much to its credit, whereas, if not, the scandal is so great that it ought to change its name. Let us now hear the case against, as stated by Professor Wheeler, after which readers may make up their minds, if they can, for I have not quite done so yet. I quote in full, so that the two statements may be balanced against each other, and this, I hope, will be more interesting than the usual “Mr. So and So, however, disputes this and thinks, etc.”—another line or two in which the contrary proposition of the one before is stated at about the same length. This is what Professor Wheeler, who “speaks home—you may relish him more (or at least as much) in the soldier as the scholar”—has to say: “It may not be altogether out of place in this paper to record a few other observations on _Pogonomyrmex molifacieus_, inasmuch as this form has been singled out among all the known members of the genus as presenting certain remarkable instincts. Lincecum is responsible for the myth that this _Pogonomyrmex_ sows a certain species of grass, the ‘ant-rice’ (_Aristida oligantha_), protects it from harm and frees it from weeds while it is growing, for the purpose of reaping the grain. This notion, which even the Texan schoolboy (not Macaulay’s, who probably knew as much about it) has come to regard as a joke, has been widely cited, largely because the great Darwin stood sponsor for its publication in the Journal of the Linnean Society. McCook, after spending a few weeks in Texas observing the ant in question and recording his observations in a book of 310 pages, failed to obtain any evidence either for or against the Lincecum myth and merely succeeded in extending its vogue by admitting its plausibility. Two years of nearly continuous observation enable me to suggest the probable source of Lincecum’s and McCook’s misconceptions. In either case the observer has started with a few facts, and has then stopped short to draw inferences before gathering more facts. If the nests of _Molifacieus_ be studied during the cool winter months—and this is the only time to study them leisurely and comfortably, since the cold subdues the fiery stings of their inhabitants—the seeds which the ants have garnered in many of their chambers will often be found to have sprouted. It is, therefore, certain that these ants are not able to prevent the seed from germinating, as Moggridge claims for the European species of Messar, except by conveying them to drier chambers; and in protracted spells of wet weather even this precaution seems to be of no avail. On sunny days the ants may often be seen removing these seeds when they have sprouted too far to be left for food, and carrying them to the refuse heap, which is always at the extremity of the cleared earthern disk or mound. In this place the seeds thus cast away as