permitted to be eaten as food. "Of these may ye eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind" (Lev. xi. 22).

Nests of White Ant in Central Africa.

Indeed, in many countries insects, ants particularly, are served up in various ways, parched, or made into a cake

with flour. Who would think of scrunching up a big spider as he would a nut? and yet some have enjoyed such a delicacy, declaring the one very much resembled the other. Did this occasion the saying, "There is no accounting for taste" ?

I remember some few years ago observing a choice dish on the dinner-table in Austria which I believed to contain a conserve of preserved flies; and at Constantinople, remarking upon the corpulency of the ladies who were privileged to promenade on the shores of the Bosphorus on the Sabbath-day, which in that city is on the Friday, I was informed that corpulency among ladies was considered a mark of female beauty, and it was produced by their indulgence in confectionary compounded of blackbeetles.

After this I think little apology is necessary to believe in the report that the white ants of Africa, parched, or made into a cake with flour, may be preferred to bread and apricots for lunch.

Before we bring our story of the little people to a close, we may refer to the fact that those who read the Bible only to find fault with it have seen a difficulty in the words which we have followed, saying the passage is not true, because it is a well-ascertained fact that ants do not lay up a store of food gathered in summer for winter use, when generally they are torpid. But it never once says in the book that they do. It simply says, "They prepare their meat in the summer," and "provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."

The Hebrew word in the phrase "provideth her meat" means the same as prepare, and signifies "to dispose in order," then "to collect, to gather together." We have the same word in Deuteronomy xxviii. 39, and Proverbs x. 5, where the gathering in the vintage and the summer fruits is referred to. "Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the

grapes." Then Solomon's own words, "He that gathereth in summer is a wise son."

But the objector's difficulty, just like so many other objectors' difficulties, is entirely gratuitous. Solomon in neither case affirms that the ant laid up in her storehouse stores of grain against winter, but that, with considerable prudence and foresight, she takes seasonable advantage of her opportunities to collect a supply of provision against a time when such opportunities may not occur. This is the lesson the king would teach, and he sends us to one of the humblest of creatures for his illustration.

Some very interesting additional evidence, however, has recently been published, showing that amongst the great variety of ants of which we have already learned something, there are, amongst the agricultural ants of Texas, some species who actually do store up a quantity of food for future use, and indeed, in Dr. Thompson's very valuable work, "The Land and the Book," the disposition of ants in the land over which Solomon ruled to store up grains of corn is clearly shown. Their habits are exactly the same in our day that they were when he said they provided their food in the summer. Solomon clearly referred to the species generally, but still might have observed the harvesting ant of Palestine, and if so he referred to it.

But a work to which we may just refer abounds with evidence that in America there are ants who, in a remarkable manner, make it the great business of their lives to provide their food in the summer, and in which work all the patient and industrious habits of our European species appear to be completely eclipsed; for, in nursing, cleansing, feeding, and sleeping, in sympathizing, marrying, protecting, and helping; in playing and amusing, in

*"The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas," by H. C. McCook, of the Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. Published by J. P. Lippincot, Philadelphia, 1880. An invaluable work on the life of the insect.

working, road-making, tunnelling, and excavating, building and constructing and mining, fetching and carrying, weeding and gleaning, foraging, harvesting, preserving and storing, plundering, enslaving, scavengering, fighting, stinging, destroying, colonizing, migrating, living and burying, the ants of Texas generally, and the agricultural ants particularly, as completely out-Herod every other species as every other species out-Herod almost every other animal, big or little.

Some slight reference has already been made in our story to this species of American ants, a fuller description of which will conclude the little people's story.

These remarkable insects, then, are here said to form one of the best representatives of the emmet family in all its most striking instincts. Although the book consists of about two hundred pages, illustrated with upwards of one hundred and twenty cuts, the history in it, confined almost exclusively to one species, is like a romance, and the author, who has devoted much of his time to the study of the insect, has united philosophy to divinity in a manner peculiarly pleasing and suggestive.

His observations are almost exclusively confined to the highlands of the great Colorado river of Texas, where ant formicaries are scattered about in vast numbers. In the streets and by the highway, in the trodden side-walks, in gardens and yards, even in the open courtyards of the hotels these humble little insects teach their lessons of every-day life; and though the hotel yard was paved solidly with stone, and cement joined the slabs together, all the day long the persevering "people" were observed at their curious work.

Following precisely the plan which colonists adopt in clearing the ground before they begin to build their habitations, the stubble and grass, their forest and jungle, are first uprooted and removed; then when the ground is cleared, tunnels leading to the subterranean storehouses

and galleries, diverging in every direction towards the outside road are constructed, which roads are carefully and constantly kept in repair, and used as avenues for communicating with the harvesting grounds.

Grass seed seems to be a favourite kind of food with the Texas ants. Stalks bearing seed are allowed to remain, and the insects patiently wait till the ripened seed falls to the earth, when one after another, "an exceeding large army," remove the grains into the storehouse below.

Here is a comparison with Mark Twain's experience in the Black Forest by his fellow-countryman, who, in describing from his personal observation, notices the doings of one of the ants of Texas, where the ground was cleared and the roads regularly formed, starting with a multitude of little followers in search of food, in the shape of grass or other seeds, to stow away for future use in the warehouses underground. The writer says: "At last a satisfactory seed is found. It is simply lifted from the ground, or, as it often happens, has to be pulled across the soil, into which it has been slightly pressed by the rain or by passing feet. Now follows a movement which I thought to be a testing of the seed, and which indeed may be partially that, but finally I concluded that it was the adjusting of the burden for safe and convenient carriage. The ant pulls at the seed-husk with its mandibles, turning and pinching or feeling it on all sides. If this does not satisfy, and commonly it does not, the body is raised by stiffening out the legs, the abdomen is curved underneath, and the apex applied to the seed. I suppose this to be simply a mechanical action for the better adjusting the load. Now the worker starts homeward. It has not lost itself in the mazes of the grass forest, but turns directly to the road with an unerring judgment. There are many obstacles to overcome. Pebbles, pellets of earth, bits of wood, obtruding rootlets, or bent-down spears of grass block up or hinder the way. These were scarcely noticed