Note 691 — LETTER XI.
Reading edition
The Russian shepherds ingeniously avail themselves of the attachment of ants to their young, for obtaining with little trouble a collection of the pupæ, which they sell as a dainty food for nightingales. They scatter an ants' nest upon a dry plot of ground, surrounded with a shallow trench of water, and place on one side of it a few fir branches. Under these the ants, having no other alternative, carefully arrange all their pupæ, and in an hour or two the shepherd finds a large heap clean and ready for market. Anderson's Recreations in Agriculture, &c. iv. 158.