Classicly

Claudius Ælianus, who lived in the time of Hadrian, gives a detailed account of the habits which he attributes to ants, from which the following is a translation: "In summer time, after harvest, while the ears are being threshed the ants pry about in troops around the threshing floors, leaving their homes, and going singly, in pairs, or sometimes three together. They then select grains of wheat or barley, and go straight home by the way they came.