ANSWERABLE (an'ser-a-b1), correspondent to; meet for (Exod. xxxviii :t8; Matt. iii: 8). The answer of peace, from a city at tacked in war (Deus. xx:i i), implied a desire to come to terms of peace. The answer of peace from God (Gen. xii :16), implies a gracious hearing to our prayers. The answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, implies the testimony of a con science delivered from guilt and fear, through faith in the blood of the risen Saviour. A fool is to be answered according to his folly, and yet not according to it (Prov. xxvi:4, 5) ; that is, his folly ought to be exposed ; but not in a spirit and manner chargeable with the folly which we rebuke in him.
ANT (ant), (Heb. nem•aw-law', creeping, fifth order of insects; HymenoPtera. Linn.; occurs Pros'. vi:6; xxx:25). Ants have only latterly be come the subjects of accurate observation.
(1) The investigations of Latreille,Gould,Geer, Huber, Kirby, Spence, Moggridge. Bates, Belt and Sir John Lubbock, have dissipated many erroneous notions respecting them, and revealing much interesting information concerning their domestic polity, language, migrations, affections, passions, virtues, wars, diversions, etc. The fol lowing facts arc selected as relevant to Scriptural illustration: Ants dwell together in societies., and although they have no 'guide. overseer, or ruler,' yet they have all one soul, and arc animated by one object—their own welfare, and the wel fare of each other. Each individual strenuously pursues his own peculiar duties; and regards (except in the case of females), and is regarded by, every other number of the republic with equal respect and affection. They devote the utmost attention to their young. The egg is cleaned and licked, and gradually expands under this treatment, till the worm is hatched, which is then tended and fed with the most affectionate care. They continue their assiduity to the pupa, or chrysalis, which is the third transformation. They heap tip the pupa., which greatly resemble so many grains of wheat, or rather rice, by hun dreds in their spacious lodges. watch them in an attitude of defense, carry them out to cnioy the radiance of the sun, and remove them to different situations in the nest, according to the required degree of temperature ; open the pupa, and at the precise moment of the transformation. disen
thral the new-born insect of its habiliments.
(2) The most prevalent and inexcusable error, however, respecting ants, has been the belief that they hoard up grains of corn. chiefly wheat, for their supply during winter, having first bitten out the germ to prevent it from growing in their nests. The learned Bochart has collected an im mense array of the most eminent authors and naturalists of antiquity (Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Arabian), who all gravely propound this assertion. Even Solomon himself, whose re nowned attainments in natural history included the knowledge of insects (i Kings iv:33), has been inconsiderately supposed to have sanctioned the same opinion in the two passages in his writ ings which refer to the ant. The mistake has no doubt arisen from the great similarity, both in shape, size, and color, before mentioned, of the pupa or chrysalis of the ant to a grain of corn, and from the ants being observed to carry them about, and to open the cuticle to let out the in closed insect. Leeuwenhoeck was the first who distinguished, with precision, the precise forms which the ant assumes in the several stages of its development, from the egg to the larva, from the larva to the pupa, and thence to the perfect insect. Swammerdam renewed the inquiry, and discovered the encasement of all parts of the future ant, and showed that it appeared in such different forms only from the nature of its en velopes, each of which, at its proper period, is cast off. It is now also ascertained beyond a doubt that no European ants, hitherto properly examined, feed on corn or wheat or any abler kind of grain. Bonnet found that however long they had been kept without food, they would not touch wheat. Nor do they attack the roots or stems of wheat, nor any other vegetable mat ter. Nor has any species of ant been yet found with food of any kind laid up in its nest. The truth is that ants are chiefly carnivorous, preying indiscriminately on all the soft parts of other insects, and especially the viscera ; also upon worms, whether dead or alive, and small birds or animals.