Chapter XVIII: Letter XI (2)

In the above account, exclusive of the bare fact of their laying the eggs, no mention is made of the female ants, the real parents of the republic. You are not from this to suppose that they never feel the influence of this divine principle of love for their offspring. When, indeed, a colony is established and peopled, they have enough to do to furnish it with eggs to produce its necessary supply of future females, males and workers; which, according to Gould, are laid at three different seasons[694]. This is the ordinary duty assigned to them by Providence. Yet at the first formation of a nest, the female acts the kind part, and performs all the maternal offices which I have just described as peculiar to the workers; and it is only when these become sufficiently numerous to relieve her, that she resigns this charge and devotes herself exclusively to oviposition[695].

There is one circumstance occurring at this period of their history, which affords a very affecting example of the self-denial and self-devotion of these admirable creatures. If you have paid any attention to what is going forward in an ant-hill, you will have observed some larger than the rest, which at first sight appear, as well as the workers, to have no wings, but which upon a closer examination exhibit a small portion of their base, or the sockets in which they were inserted. These are females that have cast their wings, not accidentally but by a _voluntary_ act. When an ant of this sex first emerges from the pupa, she is adorned with two pair of wings, the upper or outer pair being larger than her body. With these, when a virgin, she is enabled to traverse the fields of ether, surrounded by myriads of the other sex, who are candidates for her favour. But when once connubial rites are celebrated the unhappy husband dies, and the widowed bride seeks only how she may provide for their mutual offspring. Panting no more to join the choir of aërial dancers, her only thought is to construct a subterranean abode in which she may deposit and attend to her eggs, and cherish her embryo young, till, having passed through their various changes, they arrive at their perfect state, and she can devolve upon them a portion of her maternal cares. Her ample wings, which before were her chief ornament and the instruments of her pleasure, are now an incumbrance which incommode her in the fulfilment of the great duty uppermost in her mind; she therefore, without a moment's hesitation, plucks them from her shoulders. Might we not then address females who have families, in words like those of Solomon, "Go to the ant, ye _mothers_, consider her ways and be wise"?

M. P. Huber was more than once witness to this proceeding. He saw one female stretch her wings with a strong effort so as to bring them before her head--she then crossed them in all directions--next she reversed them alternately on each side--at last, in consequence of some violent contortions, the four wings fell at the same moment in his presence. Another, in addition to these motions, used her legs to assist in the work[696].

Thus, from the very moment of the extrusion of the egg to the maturity of the perfect insect, are the ants unremittingly occupied in the care of the young of the society, and that with an ardour of affectionate attachment to which, when its intensity and duration are taken into the account, we may fairly say there is nothing parallel in the whole animal world[697]. Amongst birds and quadrupeds we have instances of affection as strong perhaps while it lasts, but how much shorter the period during which it is exerted! In a month or two the young of the former require no further attention; and if in a state of nature some of the latter give suck to their offspring for a longer period, it is on their parts without effort or labour; and in both cases the time given up to their young forms a very small part of the life of the animal. But the little insects in question not only spend a greater portion of time in the education of their progeny, but devote even the whole of their existence, from their birth to their death, to this one occupation!

The common hive-bee and the wasp in their attention to their young exhibit the same general features. Both build for their reception hexagonal cells, differing in size according to the future sex of the included grubs, which as soon as hatched they both feed and assiduously tend until their transformation into pupæ. There are peculiarities, however, in their modes of procedure, which require a distinct notice.

The economy of a nest of _wasps_ differs from that of bees, in that the eggs are laid not by a single mother or queen, but by several; and that these mothers take the same care as the workers in feeding the young grubs: indeed those first hatched are fed entirely by the female which produced them, the solitary founder of the colony. The sole survivor probably of a last year's swarm of many thousands, this female, as soon as revived by the warmth of spring, proceeds to construct a few cells, and deposits in them the eggs of working wasps. The eggs are covered with a gluten, which fixes them so strongly against the sides of the cells, that it is not easy to separate them unbroken. These eggs seem to require care from the time they are laid, for the wasps many times in a day put their heads into the cells which contain them. When they are hatched, it is amusing to witness the activity with which the female runs from cell to cell, putting her head into those in which the grubs are very young, while those that are more advanced in age thrust their heads out of their cells, and by little movements seem to be asking for their food. As soon as they receive their portion, they draw them back and remain quiet. These she feeds until they become pupæ; and within twelve hours after being excluded in their perfect state, they eagerly set to work in constructing fresh cells, and in lightening the burthen of their parent by assisting her in feeding the grubs of other workers and females which are by this time born. In a few weeks the society will have received an accession of several hundred workers and many females, which without distinction apply themselves to provide food for the growing grubs, now become exceedingly numerous. With this object in view, as they collect little or no honey from flowers, they are constantly engaged in predatory expeditions. One party will attack a hive of bees, a grocer's sugar hogshead, or other saccharine repository; or, if these fail, the juice of a ripe peach or pear. You will be less indignant than formerly, at these audacious robbers now you know that self is little considered in their attacks, and that your ravaged fruit has supplied an exquisite banquet to the most tender grubs of the nest, into whose extended mouths the successful marauders, running with astonishing agility from one cell to another, disgorge successively a small portion of their booty in the same way that a bird supplies her young[698]. Another party is charged with providing more substantial aliment for the grubs of maturer growth. These wage war upon bees, flies, and even the meat of a butcher's stall, and joyfully return to the nest laden with the well-filled bodies of the former, or pieces of the latter as large as they can carry. This solid food they distribute in like manner to the larger grubs, which may be seen eagerly protruding their heads out of the cells to receive the welcome meal. As wasps lay up no store of food, these exertions are the task of every day during the summer, fresh broods of grubs constantly succeeding to those which have become pupæ or perfect insects; and in autumn, when the colony is augmented to 20 or 30,000, and the grubs in proportion, the scene of bustle which it presents may be readily conceived.

Though such is the love of wasps for their young, that if their nest be broken almost entirely in pieces they will not abandon it[699], yet when the cold weather approaches, a melancholy change ensues, followed by a cruel catastrophe, which at first you will be apt to regard as ill comporting with this affectionate character. As soon as the first sharp frost of October has been felt, the exterior of a wasp's nest becomes a perfect scene of horror. The old wasps drag out of the cells all the grubs and unrelentingly destroy them, strewing their dead carcases around the door of their now desolate habitation. "What monsters of cruelty!" I hear you exclaim, "what detestable barbarians!" But be not too hasty. When you have coolly considered the circumstances of the case, you will view this seemingly cruel sacrifice in a different light. The old wasps have no stock of provisions: the benumbing hand of Winter is about to incapacitate them from exertion; while the season itself affords no supply. What resource then is left? Their young must linger on a short period, suffering all the agonies of hunger, and at length expire. They have it in their power at least to shorten the term of this misery--to cut off its bitterest moments. A sudden death by their own hands is comparatively a merciful stroke. This is the only alternative; and thus, in fact, this apparent ferocity is the last effort of tender affection, active even to the end of life. I do not mean to say that this train of reasoning actually passes through the mind of the wasps. It is more correct to regard it as having actuated the benevolent Author of the instinct so singularly, and without doubt so wisely, excited. Were a nest of wasps to survive the winter, they would increase so rapidly, that not only would all the bees, flies, and other animals on which they prey, be extirpated, but man himself find them a grievous pest. It is necessary, therefore, that the great mass should annually perish; but that they may suffer as little as possible, the Creator, mindful of the happiness of the smallest of his creatures, has endowed a part of the society, at the destined time, with the wonderful instinct which, previously to their own death, makes them the executioners of the rest.

Wasps in the construction of their nests have solely in view the accommodation of their young ones; and to these their cells are exclusively devoted. _Bees_, on the contrary, (I am speaking of the common hive-bee,) appropriate a considerable number of their cells to the reception of honey intended for the use of the society. Yet the education of the young brood is their chief object, and to this they constantly sacrifice all personal and selfish considerations. In a new swarm the first care is to build a series of cells to serve as cradles; and little or no honey is collected until an ample store of _bee-bread_, as it is called, has been laid up for their food. This bee-bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, which the workers are incessantly employed in gathering, flying from flower to flower, brushing from the stamens their yellow treasure, and collecting it in the little baskets with which their hind legs are so admirably provided; then hastening to the hive, and having deposited their booty, returning for a new load. The provision thus furnished by one set of labourers is carefully stored up by another, until the eggs which the queen-bee has laid, and which adhering by a glutinous covering she places nearly upright in the bottom of the cell, are hatched. With this bee-bread after it has undergone a conversion into a sort of whitish jelly by being received into the bee's stomach, where it is probably mixed with honey[700] and regurgitated, the young brood immediately upon their exclusion, and until their change into nymphs, are diligently fed by other bees, which anxiously attend upon them and several times a day afford a fresh supply. Different bees are seen successively to introduce their heads into the cells containing them, and after remaining in that position some moments, during which they replace the expended provision, pass on to those in the neighbourhood. Others often immediately succeed, and in like manner put in their heads as if to see that the young ones have every thing necessary; which being ascertained by a glance, they immediately proceed, and stop only when they find a cell almost exhausted of food. That the office of these purveyors is no very simple affair will be admitted, when it is understood that the food of all the grubs is not the same, but that it varies according to their age, being insipid when they are young, and, when they have nearly attained maturity, more sugary and somewhat acid. The larvæ destined for queen-bees, too, require a food altogether different from that appropriated to those of drones and workers. It may be recognised by its sharp and pungent taste.

So accurately is the supply of food proportioned to the wants of the larvæ, that when they have attained their full growth and are ready to become nymphs, not an atom is left unconsumed. At this period, intuitively known to their assiduous foster-parents, they terminate their cares by sealing up each cell with a lid of wax, convex in those containing the larvæ of drones, and nearly flat in those containing the larvæ of workers, beneath which the inclosed tenants spin in security their cocoon.--In all these labours neither the queen nor the drones take the slightest share. They fall exclusively upon the workers, who, constantly called upon to tend fresh broods, as those brought to maturity are disposed of, devote nearly the whole of their existence to these maternal offices.

_Humble-bees_[701], which in respect of their general policy must, when compared with bees and wasps, be regarded as rude and untutored villagers, exhibit nevertheless marks of affection to their young quite as strong as their more polished neighbours. The females, like those of wasps, take a considerable share in their education. When one of them has with great labour constructed a commodious waxen cell, she next furnishes it with a store of pollen moistened with honey; and then having deposited six or seven eggs, carefully closes the orifice and minutest interstices with wax. But this is not the whole of her task. By a strange instinct, which, however, may be necessary to keep the population within due bounds, the workers, while she is occupied in laying her eggs, endeavour to seize them from her, and, if they succeed, greedily devour them. To prevent this violence, her utmost activity is scarcely adequate; and it is only after she has again and again beat off the murderous intruders and pursued them to the furthest verge of the nest, that she succeeds in her operation. When finished, she is still under the necessity of closely guarding the cell, which the gluttonous workers would otherwise tear open, and devour the eggs. This duty she performs for six or eight hours with the vigilance of an Argus, at the end of which time they lose their taste for this food, and will not touch it even when presented to them. Here the labours of the mother cease, and are succeeded by those of the workers. These know the precise hour when the grubs have consumed their stock of food, and from that time to their maturity regularly feed them with either honey or pollen, introduced in their proboscis through a small hole in the cover of the cell opened for the occasion and then carefully closed.

They are equally assiduous in another operation. As the grubs increase in size the cell which contained them becomes too small, and in their exertions to be more at ease they split its thin sides. To fill up these breaches as fast as they occur with a patch of wax, is the office of the workers, who are constantly on the watch to discover when their services are wanted; and thus the cells daily increase in size, in a way which to an observer ignorant of the process seems very extraordinary.

The last duty of these affectionate foster-parents is to assist the young bees in cutting open the cocoons which have inclosed them in the state of _pupæ_. A previous labour however must not be omitted. The workers adopt similar measures with the hive-bee for maintaining the young pupæ concealed in these cocoons in a genial temperature. In cold weather and at night they get upon them and impart the necessary warmth by brooding over them in clusters. Connected with this part of their domestic economy, M. P. Huber, a worthy scion of a celebrated stock, and an inheritor of the science and merits of the great Huber as well as of his name, in his excellent paper on these insects in the sixth volume of the Linnean Transactions, from which most of these facts are drawn, relates a singularly curious anecdote.

In the course of his ingenious and numerous experiments, M. Huber put under a bell-glass about a dozen humble-bees without any store of wax, along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons so unequal in height that it was impossible the mass should stand firmly. Its unsteadiness disquieted the humble-bees extremely. Their affection for their young led them to mount upon the cocoons for the sake of imparting warmth to the inclosed little ones, but in attempting this the comb tottered so violently that the scheme was almost impracticable. To remedy this inconvenience, and to make the comb steady, they had recourse to a most ingenious expedient. Two or three bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves over its edge, and with their heads downwards fixed their fore feet on the table upon which it stood, whilst with their hind feet they kept it from falling. In this constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving their comrades when weary, did these affectionate little insects support the comb for nearly three days! At the end of this period they had prepared a sufficiency of wax with which they built pillars that kept it in a firm position: but by some accident afterwards these got displaced, when they had again recourse to their former manœuvre for supplying their place, and this operation they perseveringly continued until M. Huber, pitying their hard case, relieved them by fixing the object of their attention firmly on the table[702].

It is impossible not to be struck with the reflection that this most singular fact is inexplicable on the supposition that insects are impelled to their operations by a blind instinct alone. How could mere machines have thus provided for a case which in a state of nature has probably never occurred to ten nests of humble-bees since the creation? If in this instance these little animals were not guided by a process of reasoning, what is the distinction between reason and instinct? How could the most profound architect have better adapted the means to the end--how more dexterously _shored_ up a tottering edifice, until his beams and his props were in readiness?

With respect to the operations of the _termites_ in rearing their young I have not much to observe. All that is known is, that they build commodious cells for their reception, into which the eggs of the queen are conveyed by the workers as soon as laid, and where when hatched they are assiduously fed by them until they are able to provide for themselves.

In concluding this subject, it may not be superfluous to advert to an objection which is sometimes thrown out against regarding with any particular sympathy the affection of the lower animals to their young, on the ground that this feeling is in them the result of corporeal sensation only, and wholly different from that love which human parents feel for their offspring. It is true that the latter involves moral considerations which cannot have place in the brute creation; but it would puzzle such objectors to explain in what respect the affection which a mother feels for her new-born infant the moment it has seen the light, differs from that of an insect for its progeny. The affection of both is purely physical, and in each case springs from sensations interwoven by the Creator in the constitution of his creatures. If the parental love of the former is worthy of our tenderest sympathies, that of the latter cannot be undeserving of some portion of similar feeling.

I am, &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[658] P. 147, &c.

[659] Clark in _Linn. Trans._ iii. 304.

[660] Bonnet, ii. 344.

[661] The Rev. Dr. Sutton of Norwich made similar observations upon the proceedings of this insect in his garden for two successive seasons.

[662] Rai. _Hist. Ins._ 254.

[663] Reaum. vi. 252.

[664] By this term I would distinguish the tribe of _Fossores_ of Latreille, which the French call _Wasp-Ichneumons_, and which form the Linnean genus _Sphex_, divisible into several families as _Sphecidæ_, _Pompilidæ_, _Bembecidæ_, &c.

[665] Mr. W. S. MacLeay in his very remarkable and learned work (_Horæ Entomologicæ_) has very properly restored its name to the true _Scarabæus_ of the ancients, which gives its name to this group.

[666] Mouffet, 153.

[667] J. Pierii Valeriani _Hieroglyphica_, 93-5. Mouffet, 156.

[668] _Travels_, ii. 306. Compare M. Latreille's learned Memoir entitled _Des Insectes peints ou sculptes sur les Monumens antiques de l'Egypte_. _Ann. du Mus._ 1819.

[669] Gleditsch _Physic. Bot. Oecon. Abhandl._ iii. 200-227.

[670] _Natural Theology_, 497.

[671] Latreille denominates this tribe _Securifera_; but as the tool of these insects resembles a _saw_ and not a _hatchet_, we have ventured to change it to _Serrifera_, which is more appropriate.

[672] Prof. Peck's _Nat. Hist. of the Slug-worm_, _t._ 12. _f._ 12-14. PLATE XV. FIG. 21.

[673] _Linn. Trans._ iii. 23.

[674] _Apis._ **. _c._ 2. γ. K.

[675] PLATE XVI. FIG. 1.

[676] See Kirby in _Linn. Trans._ v. 254. _t._ 12. _f._ 15.

[677] See above, 150.

[678] Bonnet, ix. 398.

[679] liii. 37. _Pelopæus spirifex?_

[680] Reaum. vi. 269.

[681] De Geer, iii. 262.

[682] De Geer, iii. 548.

[683] Bonnet, ii. 435.

[684] De Geer, vii. 194.

[685] De Geer, vii. 268.

[686] Huber, 69.

[687] De Geer, ii. 1099.

[688] Gould, 37.

[689] Huber, 74.

[690] Huber, 78.

[691] 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.

[692] Huber, 83.

[693] Ibid. 93.

[694] p. 35.

[695] Huber, 110.

[696] Huber, 109.--Gould had, long before Huber, observed that female ants cast their wings, pp. 59, 62, 64. I have frequently observed them, sometimes with only one wing, at others with only fragments of the wings; and again, at others they were so completely pulled off, that it could not be known that they formerly had them, only by the sockets in which they were inserted.

[697] Huber, 93.

[698] See Willughby in Rai. _Hist. Ins._ 251. and Reaum.

[699] Reaum. vi. 174.

[700] It is not unlikely that it may undergo some other alteration in the bee's stomach, which may possibly secrete some peculiar substance, as John Hunter discovered that the crop of the pigeon does.

[701] Dr. Johnson was ignorant of the etymology of this word. It is clearly derived from the German _Hummel_ or _Hummel Biene_, a name probably given it from its sound. Our English name would be more significant were it altered to _Humming-bee_ or _Booming-bee_.

[702] _Linn. Trans._ vi. 247 &c.