Read it through once

The most interesting points about them are as follows. They gather a harvest and store it up for the winter. This habit of the ant was well known to the ancients, and is mentioned by Solomon. At the time of the French Encyclopædists, when the fashion of the times was all for destruction and disbelief, the fact that ants do so was ridiculed and flatly contradicted, and especially by the great naturalist Buffon. They pointed out that ants hibernated during the cold weather, and therefore required no food for the winter, so that Solomon's story was absolutely ridiculous.