Chapter V: Letter XVII: Societies of Insects Continued (3)

Some of the neuters having found a spot which they judge convenient for a new habitation, apparently without consulting the rest of the society, determine upon an emigration, and thus they compass their intention: The first step is to raise recruits:--with this view they eagerly accost several fellow citizens of their own order, caress them with their antennæ, lead them by their mandibles, and evidently appear to propose the journey to them. If they seem disposed to accompany them, the recruiting officer, for so he may be called, prepares to carry off his recruit, who, suspending himself upon his mandibles, hangs coiled up spirally under his neck;--all this passes in an amicable manner after mutual salutations. Sometimes, however, the recruiter takes the other by surprise, and drags him from the ant-hill without giving him time to consider or resist. When arrived at the proposed habitation, the suspended ant uncoils itself, and, quitting its conductor, becomes a recruiter in its turn. The pair return to the old nest, and each carries off a fresh recruit, which being arrived at the spot joins in the undertaking:--thus the number of recruiters keeps progressively increasing, till the path between the new and the old city is full of goers and comers, each of the former laden with a recruit. What a singular and amusing scene is then exhibited of the little people thus employed! When an emigration of a rufescent colony is going forward, the negroes are seen carrying their masters: and the contrast of the red with the black renders it peculiarly striking. The little turf-ants (_Myrmica? cæspitum_) upon these occasions carry their recruits uncoiled, with their head downwards and their body in the air.

This extraordinary scene continues several days; but when all the neuters are acquainted with the road to the new city, the recruiting ceases. As soon as a sufficient number of apartments to contain them are prepared, the young brood, with the males and females, are conveyed thither, and the whole business is concluded. When the spot thus selected for their residence is at a considerable distance from the old nest, the ants construct some intermediate receptacles, resembling small ant-hills, consisting of a cavity filled with fragments of straw and other materials, in which they form several cells; and here at first they deposit their recruits, males, females, and brood, which they afterwards conduct to the final settlement. These intermediate stations sometimes become permanent nests, which however maintain a connexion with the capital city[92].

While the recruiting is proceeding it appears to occasion no sensation in the original nest; all goes on in it as usual, and the ants that are not yet recruited pursue their ordinary occupations: whence it is evident that the change of station is not an enterprise undertaken by the whole community. Sometimes many neuters set about this business at the same time, which gives a short existence (for in the end they all reunite into one) to many separate formicaries. If the ants dislike their new city, they quit it for a third, and even for a fourth: and what is remarkable, they will sometimes return to their original one before they are entirely settled in the new station; when the recruiting goes in opposite directions, and the pairs pass each other on the road. You may stop the emigration for the present, if you can arrest the first recruiter, and take away his recruit[93].

I shall now relate to you some other portions of Myrmidonian History, which, though perhaps not so striking and wonderful as the preceding details, are not devoid of interest, and will serve to exemplify their incredible diligence, labour, and ingenuity.

In this country it is commonly in March, earlier or later according to the season, that ants first make their appearance, and they continue their labours till the middle or latter end of October. They emerge usually from their subterranean winter-quarters on some sunny day; when, assembling in crowds on the surface of the formicary, they may be observed in continual motion, walking incessantly over it and one another, without departing from home; as if their object, before they resumed their employments, was to habituate themselves to the action of the air and sun[94]. This preparation requires a few days, and then the business of the year commences. The earliest employment of ants is most probably to repair the injuries which their habitation has received during their state of inactivity: this observation more particularly applies to the hill-ant (_F. rufa_), all the upper stories of whose dwellings are generally laid flat by the winter rains and snow; but every species, it may well be supposed, has at this season some deranged apartments to restore to order, or some demolished ones to rebuild.

After their annual labours are begun, few are ignorant how incessantly ants are engaged in building or repairing their habitations, in collecting provisions, and in the care of their young brood; but scarcely any are aware of the extent to which their activity is carried, and that their labours are going on even in the night.--Yet this is a certain fact.--Long ago Aristotle affirmed that ants worked in the night when the moon was at the full[95]; and their historian Gould observes, "that they even exceed the painful industrious bees. For the ants employ each moment, by day and night, almost without intermission, unless hindered by excessive rains[96]." M. Huber also, speaking of a mason-ant, not found with us, tells us that they work after sun-set, and in the night[97]. To these I can add some observations of my own, which fully confirm these accounts. My first were made at nine o'clock at night, when I found the inhabitants of a nest of the red ant (_Myrmica rubra_) very busily employed; I repeated the observation, which I could conveniently do, the nest being in my garden, at various times from that hour till twelve, and always found some going and coming, even while a heavy rain was falling. Having in the day noticed some Aphides upon a thistle, I examined it again in the night, at about eleven o'clock, and found my ants busy milking their cows, which did not for the sake of repose intermit their suction. At the same hour, another night, I observed the little negro ant (_F. fusca_) engaged in the same employment upon an elder. About two miles from my residence was a nest of Gould's hill-ant (_F. rufa_), which, according to M. Huber, shut their gates, or rather barricade them, every night, and remain at home[98]. Being desirous of ascertaining the accuracy of his statement, early in October, about two o'clock one morning, I visited this nest in company with an intelligent friend; and to our surprise and admiration we found our ants at work, some being engaged in carrying their usual burthen, sticks and straws, into their habitation, others going out from it, and several were climbing the neighbouring oaks, doubtless to milk their Aphides. The number of comers and goers at that hour, however, was nothing compared with the myriads that may always be seen on these nests during the day. It so happened that our visit was paid while the moon was near the full; so that whether this species is equally vigilant and active in the absence of that luminary yet remains uncertain. Perhaps this circumstance might reconcile Huber's observation with ours, and confirm the accuracy of Aristotle's statement before quoted. To the _red ant_, indeed, it is perfectly indifferent whether the moon shine or not; they are always busy, though not in such numbers as during the day. It is probable that these creatures take their repose at all hours indifferently; for it cannot be supposed that they are employed day and night without rest.

I have related to you in this and former letters most of the works and employments of ants, but as yet I have given you no account of their roads and track-ways.--Don't be alarmed, and imagine I am going to repeat to you the fable of the ancients, that they wear a path in the stones[99]; for I suppose you will scarcely be brought to believe that, as Hannibal cut a way for the passage of his army over the Alps by means of vinegar, so the ants may with equal effect employ the formic acid: but more species than one do really form roads which lead from their formicaries into the adjoining country. Gould, speaking of his jet-ant (_F. fuliginosa_), says that they make several main track-ways, (streets he calls them,) with smaller paths striking off from them, extending sometimes to the distance of forty feet from their nest, and leading to those spots in which they collect their provisions; that upon these roads they always travel, and are very careful to remove from them bits of sticks, straw, or anything that may impede their progress; nay, that they even keep low the herbs and grass which grow in them, by constantly biting them off[100], so that they may be said to mow their walks. But the best constructors of roads are the hill-ants (_F. rufa_). Of these De Geer says, "When you keep yourself still, without making any noise, in the woods peopled with these ants, you may hear them very distinctly walking over the dry leaves which are dispersed upon the soil, the claws of their feet producing a slight sound when they lay hold of them. They make in the ground broad paths, well beaten, which may be readily distinguished, and which are formed by the going and coming of innumerable ants, whose custom it is always to travel in the same route[101]." From Huber we further learn, that these roads of the hill-ants are sometimes a hundred feet in length, and several inches wide; and that they are not formed merely by the tread of these creatures, but hollowed out by their labour[102]. Virgil alludes to their tracks in the following animated lines, which, though not altogether correct, are very beautiful:

"So when the pismires, an industrious train,
Embodied rob some golden heap of grain,
Studious ere stormy winter frowns to lay
Safe in their darksome cells the treasured prey;
_In one long track_ the dusky legions lead
Their prize in triumph through the verdant mead;
Here bending with the load, a panting throng
With force conjoin'd heave some huge grain along;
Some lash the stragglers to the task assign'd,
Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind:
They crowd _the peopled path_ in thick array,
Glow at the work, and darken all the way."

Bonnet, observing that ants always keep the same track both in going from and returning to their nest, imagines that their paths are imbued with the strong scent of the formic acid, which serves to direct them; but, as Huber remarks, though this may be of some use to them, their other senses must be equally employed, since it is evident, when they have made any discovery of agreeable food, that they possess the means of directing their companions to it, though it is scarcely possible that the path can have been sufficiently impregnated with the acid for them to trace their way to it by scent. Indeed the recruiting system described above, proves that it requires some pains to instruct ants in the way from an old to a new nest; whereas, were they directed by scent, after a sufficient number had passed to and fro to imbue the path with the acid, there would be no occasion for further deportations[103].

Though ants have no mechanical inventions to diminish the quantum of labour, yet by numbers, strength, and perseverance they effect what at first sight seems quite beyond their powers. Their strength is wonderful: I once, as I formerly observed, saw two or three of them haling along a young snake not dead, which was of the thickness of a goose-quill[104]. St. Pierre relates, that he was highly amused with seeing a number of ants carrying off a Patagonian centipede. They had seized it by all its legs, and bore it along as workmen do a large piece of timber[105]. The Mahometans hold, as Thevenot relates, that one of the animals in Paradise is Solomon's ant, which, when all creatures in obedience to him brought him presents, dragged before him a locust, and was therefore preferred before all others, because it had brought a creature so much bigger than itself. They sometimes, indeed, aim at things beyond their strength; but if they make their attack, they pertinaciously persist in it though at the expense of their lives. I have in my cabinet a specimen of _Colliuris longicollis_, Latr., to one of the legs of which a small ant, scarcely a thirtieth part of its bulk, is fixed by its jaws. It had probably the audacity to attack this giant, compared with itself, and obstinately refusing to let go its hold was starved to death[106]. Professor Afzelius once related to me some particulars with respect to a species of ant in Sierra Leone, which proves the same point. He says that they march in columns that exceed all powers of numeration, and always pursue a straight course, from which nothing can cause them to deviate: if they come to a house or other building, they storm or undermine it; if a river comes across them, though millions perish in the attempt, they endeavour to swim over it.

This quality of perseverance in ants on one occasion led to very important results, which affected a large portion of this habitable globe; for the celebrated conqueror Timour, being once forced to take shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat alone many hours, desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless condition, he fixed his observation upon an ant that was carrying a grain of corn (probably a pupa) larger than itself up a high wall. Numbering the efforts that it made to accomplish this object, he found that the grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground, but the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. "This sight (said Timour) gave me courage at the moment; and I have never forgotten the lesson it conveyed[107]."

Madame Merian, in her _Surinam Insects_, speaking of the large-headed ant (_Œcodoma cephalotes_), affirms that, if they wish to emigrate, they will construct a living bridge in this manner:--One individual first fixes itself to a piece of wood by means of its jaws, and remains stationary; with this a second connects itself; a third takes hold of the second, and a fourth of the third, and so on, till a long connected line is formed fastened at one extremity, which floats exposed to the wind, till the other end is blown over so as to fix itself to the opposite side of the stream, when the rest of the colony pass over upon it, as a bridge[108]. This is the process, as far as I can collect it from her imperfect account:--as she is not always very correct in her statements, I regarded this as altogether fabulous, till I met with the following history of a similar proceeding in De Azara, which induces me to give more credit to it.

He tells us, that in low districts in South America, that are exposed to inundations, conical hills of earth may be observed, about three feet high, and very near to each other, which are inhabited by a little black ant. When an inundation takes place, they are heaped together out of the nest into a circular mass, about a foot in diameter and four fingers in depth. Thus they remain floating upon the water while the inundation continues. One of the sides of the mass which they form is attached to some sprig of grass, or piece of wood; and when the waters are retired, they return to their habitation. When they wish to pass from one plant to another, they may often be seen formed into a bridge, of two palms length, and of the breadth of a finger, which has no other support than that of its two extremities. One would suppose that their own weight would sink them; but it is certain that the masses remain floating during the inundation, which lasts some days[109].

You must now be fully satiated with this account of the constant fatigue and labour to which our little pismires are doomed by the law of their nature; I shall therefore endeavour to relieve your mind by introducing you to a more quiet scene, and exhibit them to you during their intervals of repose and relaxation.

Gould tells us that the hill-ant is very fond of basking in the sun, and that on a fine serene morning you may see them conglomerated like bees on the surface of their nest, from whence, on the least disturbance, they will disappear in an instant[110]. M. Huber also observes, after their labours are finished, that they stretch themselves in the sun, where they lie heaped one upon another, and seem to enjoy a short interval of repose: and in the interior of an artificial nest, in which he had confined some of this species, where he saw many employed in various ways, he noticed some reposing which appeared to be asleep[111].

But they have not only their time for repose; they also devote some to relaxation, during which they amuse themselves with sports and games. "You may frequently perceive one of these ants (_F. rufa_) (says our Gould) run to and fro with a fellow-labourer in his forceps, of the same species and colony. It appeared first in the light of provisions; but I was soon undeceived by observing, that after being carried for some time, it was let go in a friendly manner, and received no personal injury. This amusement, or whatever title you please to give it, is often repeated, particularly amongst the hill-ants, who are very fond of this sportive exercise[112]." A nest of ants which Bonnet found in the head of a teazle, when enjoying the full sun, which seems the acme of formic felicity, amused themselves with carrying each other on their backs, the rider holding with his mandibles the neck of his horse, and embracing it closely with his legs[113]. But the most circumstantial account of their sports is given by Huber. "I approached one day," says he, "one of their formicaries (he is speaking of _F. rufa_) exposed to the sun and sheltered from the north. The ants were heaped together in great numbers, and seemed to enjoy the temperature which they experienced at the surface of the nest. None of them were working: this multitude of accumulated insects exhibited the appearance of a boiling fluid, upon which at first the eye could scarce fix itself without difficulty. But when I set myself to follow each ant separately, I saw them approach each other, moving their antennæ with astonishing rapidity; with their fore-feet they patted lightly the cheeks of other ants: after these first gestures, which resembled caresses, they reared upon their hind-legs by pairs, they wrestled together, they seized one another by a mandible, by a leg or an antenna, they then let go their hold to renew the attack; they fixed themselves to each other's trunk or abdomen, they embraced, they turned each other over, or lifted each other up by turns--they soon quitted the ants they had seized, and endeavoured to catch others: I have seen some who engaged in these exercises with such eagerness, as to pursue successively several workers; and the combat did not terminate till the least animated, having thrown his antagonist, accomplished his escape by concealing himself in some gallery[114]." He compares these sports to the gambols of two puppies, and tells us that he not only often observed them in this nest, but also in his artificial one.

I shall here copy for you a memorandum I formerly made. "On the ninth of May, at half-past two, as I was walking on the Plumstead road near Norwich, on a sunny bank I observed a large number of ants (_Formica fusca_) agglomerated in crowds near the entrances of their nest. They seemed to make no long excursions, as if intent upon enjoying the sun-shine at home; but all the while they were coursing about, and appeared to accost each other with their antennæ. Examining them very attentively, I at length saw one dragging another, which it absolutely lifted up by its antennæ, and carrying it in the air. I followed it with my eye, till it concealed itself and its antagonist in the nest. I soon noticed another that had recourse to the same manœuvres; but in this instance the ant that was attacked resisted manfully, a third sometimes appearing inclined to interfere: the result was, that this also was dragged in. A third was haled in by its legs, and a fourth by its mandibles. What was the precise object of these proceedings, whether sport or violence, I could not ascertain. I walked the same way on the following morning, but at an earlier hour, when only a few comers and goers were to be seen near the nest:" And soon leaving the place, I had no further opportunity to attend to them.

And now having conducted you through every apartment of the formicary, and shown you its inhabitants in every light, I shall leave you to meditate on the extraordinary instincts with which their Creator has gifted them, reserving what I have to say on the other social insects for a future occasion.

I am, &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] It is not here meant to be asserted that insects are actuated by these passions in the same way that man is, but only that in their various instincts they exhibit the semblance of them, and as it were _symbolize_ them.

[36] Plusieurs d'entre eux (_Insectes_) savent user de ressources ingénieuses dans les circonstances difficiles: ils sortent alors de leur routine accoutumée et semblent agir d'après la position dans laquelle ils se trouvent; c'est là sans doute l'un des phénomènes les plus curieux de l'histoire naturelle. Huber, _Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles_, ii. 198.--Compare also ibid. 250, note N. B.

[37] I employ occasionally the term _neuters_, though it is not perfectly proper, for the sake of convenience;--strictly speaking, they may rather be regarded as imperfect or sterile females. Yet certainly, as the imperfection of their organization unfits them for sexual purposes, the term _neuter_ is not absolutely improper.

[38] _Œuv._ ix. 163.

[39] M. P. Huber in _Linn. Trans._ vi. 256. Reaum. v.

[40] VOL. I. 244.

[41] The neuters in all respects bear a stronger analogy to the larvæ than to the perfect insects; and, after all, may possibly turn out to be larvæ, perhaps of the males. Huber seems to doubt their being neuters. _Nouv. Obs._ ii. 444, note *.

[42] In this these animals vary from the usual instinct of the social _Hymenoptera_, the ants, the wasps, and the humble-bees--with whom the females lay the first foundations of the colonies, unassisted by any neuters;--but in the swarms of the hive-bee an election may perhaps in some instances be said to take place.

[43] VOL. I. Ed. 508.

[44] See VOL. I. 509.

[45] Gould's _Account of English Ants_, 22.

[46] The late John Hunter dissected two young queens. In the abdomen he found two ovaries, consisting of many hundred oviducts, each containing innumerable eggs.

[47] The anonymous author before alluded to, who observed the Ceylon white ants, says, that such was the size of the masses, which were tempered with a strong gluten, that they adhered though laid on the upper part of the breach.

[48] Latr. _Hist. Nat._ xiii. 64.

[49] _N. Dict. D'Hist. Nat._ xxii. 57, 58.

[50] Bochart, _Hierozoic._ ii. 1. iv. c. 22.

[51] M. P. Huber, in the account which, in imitation of De Geer, he has given of the discoveries made by his predecessors in the history of ants, having passed without notice, probably ignorant of the existence of such a writer, those of our intelligent countryman Gould, I shall here give a short analysis of them; from which it will appear, that he was one of their best, or rather their very best historian, till M. Huber's work came out. His _Account of English Ants_ was published in 1747, long before either Linné or De Geer had written upon the subject.

I. _Species._ He describes five species of English ants; viz. 1. The hill ant (_Formica rufa_, L.). 2. The jet ant (_F. fuliginosa_, Latr.). 3. The red ant (_Myrmica rubra_, Latr. _Formica_, Lin.): He observes, that this species alone is armed with a sting; whereas, the others make a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid into it. 4. The common yellow ant (_F. flava_, Latr.): and 5. The small black ant (_F. fusca_, L.).

II. _Egg._ He observes that the eggs producing males and females are laid the earliest, and are the largest:--he seems, however, to have confounded the black and brown eggs of _Aphides_ with those of ants.

III. _Larva._ These, when first hatched, he observes, are hairy, and continue in the larva state twelve months or more. He, as well as De Geer, was aware that the larvæ of _Myrmica rubra_ do not, as other ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa.

IV. _Pupa._ He found that female ants continue in this state about six weeks, and males and neuters only a month.

V. _Imago._ He knew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that females cast their wings previous to their becoming mothers; that, at the time of their swarms, large numbers of both sexes become the prey of birds and fishes: that the surviving females, sometimes in numbers, go under ground, particularly in mole-hills, and lay eggs; but he had not discovered that they then act the part of neuters in the care of their progeny. He knew also, that when there was more than one queen in a nest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony.

With respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they pay their queens or fertile females, continued even after their death;--this homage, he however observes, which is noticed by no other author, appears often to be temporary and local--ceasing at certain times, and being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges upon their exemplary care of the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ. He tells us that the eggs, as soon as laid, are taken by the neuters and deposited in heaps, and that the neuters brood them. He particularly notices their carrying them, with the larvæ and pupæ, daily from the interior to the surface of the nest and back again, according to the temperature; and that they feed the larvæ by disgorging the food from their own stomach. He speaks also of their opening the cocoons when the pupæ are ready to assume the imago, and disengaging them from them. With regard to their labours, he found that they work all night, except during violent rains:--that their instinct varies as to the station of their nest:--that their masonry is consolidated by no cement, but consists merely of mould;--that they form roads and trackways to and from their nests;--that they carry each other in sport, and sometimes lie heaped one on another in the sun.--He suspects that they occasionally emigrate;--he proves by a variety of experiments that they do not hoard up provisions. He found they were often infested by a particular kind of _Gordius_:--he had noticed also that the neuters of _F. rufa_ and _flava_ (which escaped M. Huber, though he observed it in _Polyergus rufescens_, Latr.) are of two sizes, which the writer of this note can confirm by producing specimens:--and lastly, with Swammerdam, he had recourse to artificial colonies, the better to enable him to examine their proceedings, but not comparable to the ingenious apparatus of M. Huber.

[52] Gould says that the males and females are nearly equal in number, p. 62; but from Huber's observations it seems to follow that the former are most numerous, p. 96.

[53] That the neuter ants, like those of the hive-bee, are imperfectly organized females, appears from the following observation of M. Huber (_Nouv. Observ. &c._ ii. 443.)--"Les fourmis nous ont encore offert à cet égard une analogie très frappante; à la vérité, nous n'avons jamais vu pondre les ouvrières, mais nous avons été témoins de leur accouplement. Ce fait pourroit être attesté par plusieurs membres de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Génève, à qui nous l'avons fait voir; l'approche du mâle étoit toujours suivie de la mort de l'ouvrière; leur conformation ne permet donc pas qu'elles deviennent mères, mais l'instinct du mâle prouve du moins que ce sont des femelles."

[54] Gould, 103.

[55] M. Huber calls this an apterous female; yet he could not discover that they laid eggs; and he owns that they more nearly resembled the workers than the females; and that he should have considered them as such, had he seen them mix with them in their excursions. _Huber_, p. 251.

[56] De Geer ii. 1104.

[57] Gould, 99.

[58] Huber, 105.

[59] _Pilgrimage_, 1090.

[60] M. Huber observes that fecundated females, after they have lost their wings, make themselves a subterranean cell, some singly, others _in common_. From which it appears that some colonies have more than one female, from their first establishment.

[61] ii. 1071.

[62] Gould, p. 24--.

[63] Compare Gould p. 25, with Huber 125, note (1).

[64] It may be thought that many of the anecdotes related in the following history of the proceedings of neuter ants could not have been observed by any one, unless he had been admitted into an ant-hill; but it must be recollected that M. P. Huber, from whose work the most extraordinary facts are copied, invented a kind of ant hive; so constructed as to enable him to observe their proceedings without disturbing them.

[65] Vol. I. 476.

[66] Gould, 92. De Geer ii. 1067. Huber, 5, 132.

[67] Huber, 133.

[68] Huber, 237, 217, 167.

[69] Ibid. 137.

[70] Bradley, 134.

[71] Gould, 85.

[72] _Hist. of Barbadoes_, p. 63.

[73] VOL. I. p. 122.

[74] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. p. 338, 342. Some, however, still regard it as a distinct acid.

[75] p. 34.

[76] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. 343.

[77] Gould, 101.

[78] One would think the writer of the account of ants in Mouffet had been witness to something similar. "If they see any one idle," says he, "they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their children not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and effeminacy."--_Theatr. Ins._ 241.

[79] Mouffet, _Theatr. Ins._ 242.

[80] Huber, 160.

[81] See Huber, chap. v.

[82] Huber, 287. Jurine, _Hyménoptères_, 273.

[83] It is not clear that our Willughby had not some knowledge of this extraordinary fact; for in his description of ants, speaking of their care of their pupæ, he says, "_that they also carry the aureliæ of others into their nests, as if they were their own_." Rai. _Hist. Ins._ 69.--Gould remarks concerning the hill-ant, "This species is very rapacious after the _vermicles_ and _nymphs_ of other ants. If you place a parcel before or near their colonies, they will, with remarkable greediness, seize and carry them off." 91, note *. Query--Do they this to devour them, or educate them? White made the same observation, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 278.

[84] This species forms a kind of link which connects Latreille's two genera _Formica_ and _Myrmica_, borrowing the abdominal squama from the former, and the sting from the latter.

[85] Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have met with fresh confirmation of the extraordinary history here related. Having been induced to visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so justly celebrated as one of the first entomologists of the age, and to whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly attentions which he paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he assured me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. He has also said the same in his _Considérations nouvelles et générales sur les insectes vivant en Société_. (Mém. du Mus. iii. 407.) At the same time he informed me that there was a nest of the rufescent ants in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards was so good as to accompany me. We went on the 25th of June, 1817. The day was excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we began our search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion. In a minute or two, however, my friend directed my attention to one individual--two or three more next appeared--and soon a numerous army was to be seen winding through the long grass of a low ridge in which was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the wood from Paris, on the right-hand and near the road, is a bare place paled in for the Sunday amusement of the lower orders--to this the ants directed their march, and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed it rapidly and with great apparent eagerness; all the while exploring the ground with their antennæ as beagles with their noses, evidently as if in pursuit of game. Those in the van, as Huber also observed, kept perpetually falling back into the main body. When they had passed this inclosure, they appeared for some time to be at a loss, making no progress but only coursing about: but after a few minutes delay, as if they had received some intelligence, they resumed their march and soon arrived at a negro nest, which they entered by one or two apertures. We could not observe that any negroes were expecting their attack outside the nest, but in a short time a few came out at another opening, and seemed to be making their escape. Perhaps some conflict might have taken place within the nest, in the interval between the appearance of these negroes and the entry of their assailants. However this might be, in a few minutes one of the latter made its appearance with a pupa in its mouth; it was followed by three or four more; and soon the whole army began to emerge as fast as it could, almost every individual carrying its burthen. Most that I observed seemed to have pupæ. I then traced the expedition back to the spot from which I first saw them set out, which according to my steps was about 156 feet from the negro formicary. The whole business was transacted in little more than an hour. Though I could trace the ants back to a certain spot in the ridge before mentioned, where they first appeared in the long grass, I did not succeed in finding the entrance to their nest, so that I was deprived of the pleasure of seeing the mixed society. As we dined at an _auberge_ close to the spot, I proposed renewing my researches after dinner; but a violent tempest of thunder and rain, though I attempted it, prevented my succeeding; and afterwards I had no opportunity of revisiting the place.

M. Latreille very justly observes that it is physically impossible for the _rufescent_ ants (_Polyergus rufescens_), on account of the form of their jaws and the accessory parts of the mouth, either to prepare habitations for their family, to procure food, or to feed them.--_Considérations nouvelles, &c._ p. 408.

[86] VOL. I. 370.

[87] See Huber, chap, vii-xi.

[88] The ant ascends the tree, says Linné, _that it may milk its cows, the Aphides_, not kill them. _Syst. Nat._ 962. 3.

[89] Huber, 195. I have more than once found these Aphides in the nests of this species of ant.

[90] See Huber, chap. vi. I have found Aphides in the nest of _Myrmica rubra_. Boisier de Sauvages speaks of ants keeping their own Aphides, and gives an interesting account of them. _Journ. de Physique_, i. 195.

[91] Gould, 42.

[92] Walking one day early in July in a spot where I used to notice a single nest of _Formica rufa_, I observed that a new colony had been formed of considerable magnitude; and between it and the original nest were six or seven smaller settlements.

[93] See Huber, chap. iv. § 3.

[94] Gould, 67. De Geer, ii. 1054.

[95] _Hist. Animal._ l. ix. c. 38.

[96] Gould, 68.

[97] Huber, 35, 42.

[98] Ibid. 23.

[99] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ lxi. c. 29.

[100] Gould, 87.

[101] De Geer, ii. 1067.

[102] Huber, 146.

[103] _Œuv. de_ Bonnet, i. 535. Huber, 197.

[104] VOL. I. 258.

[105] _Voy. to Maurit._ 71.

[106] I was much amused, when dining in the forest of Fontainebleau, by the pertinacity with which the hill-ant (_F. rufa_) attacked our food, haling from our very plates, while we were eating, long strips of meat many times their own size.

[107] Related in the _Quarterly Review_ for August 1816, p. 259.

[108] _Insect. Surinam._ p. 18. In her plate the ants are represented so connected.

[109] _Voyages dans l'Amérique Mérid._ i. 187.

[110] Gould, 69.

[111] Huber, 73.

[112] Gould, 103--.

[113] Bonnet, ii. 407.

[114] Huber, 170--.