variety. These, it will be remembered, are the only species of European ants which have as yet been proved to be harvesters and seed-storers in the fullest sense of the term, that is to say, which not only gather and carry seeds, but also store them in large quantities below the surface of the ground.[1]
In the case of Pheidole megacephala (the only other European ant which I have detected collecting seeds in large numbers), I have never been able to find granaries or subterranean stores of any kind, though I have frequently made extensive search for them, and explored, to all appearance, the whole nest.
When we remember the great variety of ants which inhabit Europe alone (a recent list[2] enumerating no fewer than 104 distinct species), it certainly may seem strange at first that only two of their number should possess this habit. Perhaps, however, we may yet discover that some other of these species are true harvesters; but at present the chances seem rather against it, since the harvesters found at such distant points as Algiers, Cadenabbia, and Montpellier have all turned out to belong to one or other of the two species, structor or barbara.
Indeed it may very well be that the numerical superiority and wide distribution of these two species have served to secure to them a more or less exclusive
- ↑ Six other species belonging to the genus Atta are found in Europe, but they are all unknown to me. It seems likely that, if other harvesting ants do exist in Europe they may belong to one of these six species; for we have seen (Ants and Spiders, p. 59) that all the ants which are known to possess this habit are either members of the genus Atta or belong to genera closely related to it.
- ↑ Description des Fourmis d'Europe pour servir à l'étude des insectes myrmecophilis, by Ernest André, in Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 3^{e} ser. tom. ii. (1874), p. 152, &c.
