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A matter obvious to everyone is the consideration ants show when they meet: those that bear no load always give way to those who have one and let them pass. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 25. Obvious also is the manner in which they gnaw through and dismember things that are difficult to carry or to convey past an obstacle, in order that they may make easy loads for several. And Aratus Phaenomena, 956; Cf. Vergil, Georgics, i. 379 f.; Theophrastus, De Signis, 22. takes it to be a sign of rainy weather when they spread out their eggs and cool them in the open: When from their hollow nest the ants in haste Bring up their eggs; and some do not write eggs here, but provisions, Not oia, but eia: What the ants really carry out in Aratus and Vergil is their pupas, but these are commonly called eggs to this day (Platt, Class. Quart. v. p. 255). The two readings in this passage seem to show that Plutarch had at hand an edition with a commentary; Cf. also 976 f infra, on the interpretation of Archilochus, and Mor. 22 b. in the sense of stored grain which, when they notice that it is growing mildewed and fear that it may decay and spoil, they bring up to the surface. But what goes beyond any other conception of their intelligence is their anticipation of the germination of wheat. You know, of course, that wheat does not remain permanently dry and stable, but expands and lactifies in the process of germination. In order, then, to keep it from running to seed and losing its value as food, and to keep it permanently edible, the ants eat out the germ from which springs the new shoot of wheat. Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 109, and Ernout ad loc.
