522 PSYCHOLOGICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



able preference to the foot of a hollow tree, or its interior when it has 

 but small accesses. They here labour with considerable industry in 

 laying the foundations of the nest, each assisting the other, and in 

 the course of a few days we perceive a structure rise having several 

 outlets. If the nest be upon the ground there are generally affiliated 

 colonies in its vicinity, which are in a constant animated intercourse 

 with the parent state. This intercourse is facilitated by the construc- 

 tion of particular roads, which in a loose soil are tolerably deeply fur- 

 rowed, and upon these roads we observe innumerable neuters inces- 

 santly coursing to and fro. All the obstructions that may here interrupt 

 them are removed, each lends its assistance, and if there be at first too 

 few for the purpose; by means of signs they urge other comrades to 

 participate in the labour. Along these roads they convey into the 

 dwelling the food for the larvae, which consists in captured insects, 

 caterpillars, small earth worms, and other, mostly animal, substances. 

 We have before related that the ants possess the faculty of communi- 

 cating their views to their comrades ; all that requires the labour of 

 many immediately occupies several, and to this participation they urge 

 each other. Huber *, to whom we are indebted for the most interest- 

 ing observations upon the economy of the ants, has observed them go 

 out in troops to enjoy some dainty repast when such has been com- 

 municated by a compatriot, whither also more and more proceed, until 

 at last nearly the entire population of the nest is found there. 

 Once, upon separating a portion of the community, which he kept in a 

 closed place for several months and then brought them back to the 

 garden where the nest was, he observed their former fellow-citizens 

 gradually emancipate them, after their dwelling had been discovered 

 by some stray ones. But still more remarkable than all this is the 

 warlike and predatory excursions which Formica rufescens and jp. 

 sanguined undertake upon losing their young progeny of neuters. They 

 then proceed in hosts to the nests of other ants, master its entrances, 

 and convey away their young. These then grow up as helots in the 

 foreign community, execute all the labour necessary for the advance 

 and preservation of the state; they seek food, increase the building, 

 sun the larvae and pupae, convey them back into the nest, and assemble 

 with their subduers without recalling their disgrace. Thus originate 

 the variously coloured and intermixed communities. 



* P. Huber, Recherchcs sur les Moeurs dcs Fourinis Indigenes. Paris et Geneve, 

 1310. v<>. 



