Nov. 1, 1870.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



215 



They are of three kinds. Males or drones, 

 females, and workers. The two first appear to 

 have to do only with the production of eggs, and 

 apparently take no share in the nursing. The males 

 are hardly so big as an ordinary neuter, but are of 

 a darker colour, and possess large and spreading 

 wings. The females are nearly as large as an 

 ordinary wasp, and have very lengthy wings in- 

 deed. When I stocked my formicary, I put in 

 neither males nor females, trusting to some of both 

 kinds appearing from the cocoons ; and, as several 

 of these were half as large again as the others, I do 

 not doubt that it was from them that the females 

 were hatched. My first female appeared on the 

 2nd of August, and my first male on the 

 13th, and, in the end, I had over a dozen of 

 the former, and still more of the latter. In fine 

 weather, the males and females might often be seen 

 poking their heads out at the opening by the grass, 

 and occasionally walking a few steps out ; but they 

 always appeared dazed at the sight of the outer 

 world, and it was evidently the object of the 

 workers to prevent them from straying, for I have 

 many times seen them, when a female has thus 

 emerged, give it a push in front, or a kind of bite 

 behind, upon which it would turn round and quietly 

 disappear. They once even dragged bodily below, 

 one of the males which had wandered away, and 

 would not obey their usual signals. The males 

 and females might often be seen lying in a burrow, 

 perfectly motionless, and enjoying the warmth, 

 whilst neuters were hard at work all around them. 

 Once when I touched with my spatula the antennae 

 of a female which was looking out, it was wonder- 

 ful to see the rage with which one of the neuters 

 rushed to attack .the assailant. 



The great instinct of an ant, and that which 

 overcomes all others, is care for its cocoons. Turn 

 over an ant-hill, and the first thing you see are ex- 

 cited ants running in all directions, carrying them 

 into shelter. Late on the evening of the day on 

 which the ants were so attracted by the dead 

 sparrow, I added about thirty cocoons from the old 

 nest. It was wonderful to see the eaters forsake 

 the meat, the workers leave the burrows, and the 

 stragglers their amusement, and one and all 

 setting to work with a will ; in ten minutes not a 

 cocoon was left above-ground. That they take 

 them down deeper in the nest in the evening or in 

 cold weather, I have repeated instances of. I have 

 often turned over an ant-hill at both of these 

 seasons, and not a cocoon was to be seen. I have 

 gone deep, however, and have found numbers ; but 

 when I have opened one, on a warm day, I have 

 always seen them in clusters close at the surface. 

 Heat is evidently necessary for the due hatching 

 of ants' cocoons. It was on the 20th of July that 

 they first brought out a few cocoons, and laid them 

 in the passages against the glass. When the time 



for removal came, this office was told off to a single 

 ant, although many others were swarming in all the 

 passages. This ant carried the cocoons about half 

 the length of the formicary, and, depositing them 

 just inside a hole, went for his next load. I always 

 knew him by the unusual pace at which he hurried 

 along. Erom this time until they were all hatched 

 the cocoons appeared almost whenever the sun 

 shone upon the formicary, numbers of ants helping 

 in the operation. Some were kept out an hour or 

 more, and others only five or ten minutes. 



Once, when it was a cloudy day, I took a candle 

 and fastened it close to that portion of the glass at 

 which they generally put their cocoons. They felt 

 the heat directly, and, in ten minutes, more cocoons 

 were out than I ever saw before. Males, females, 

 and neuters were abundant ; and, at one time, the 

 passages behind the candle were literally black with 

 the clusters of ants swarming to the warmth. On 

 the 8th of September, when the colony was very 

 lively from the warmth of a candle, I had the good 

 fortune to see a young ant actually leave its cocoon. 

 When I first saw it, it was half out of its case and 

 had there stuck. One neuter had fast hold of it, 

 while another pulled at the remainder of its 

 covering. But it was a difficult matter, and it was a 

 long time before, by degrees, they got the young one 

 out. A little kind of string, however, still remained 

 joined to one end of the cocoon, and entangled in 

 the legs of the embryo. After much trouble this 

 was cut through, and the ant was at last safely and 

 completely freed. 



I found that if I altered the position of the candle 

 to the right or left, the cocoons in a very short time 

 were taken after it. When doing this the passages 

 were often so crowded with females that I have 

 often seen the neuters take a roundabout way to 

 escape the crush. When the sun was shining, and 

 the mullion of the window cast a shadow over the 

 formicary, the cocoons were generally carried in ; 

 and, when this shadow had passed, they were again 

 produced. Their number slowly but steadily de- 

 creased week by week, and the last was hatched on 

 September the 20th, only, however, to be killed by 

 its pitiless nurses. On August the 31st I cut open 

 and examined in the microscope some of the cocoons. 

 I found a perfectly-formed ant inside. It was quite 

 white, with the exception of the mandibles, which 

 were tinged with brown, and toothed with about 

 eight sharp teeth, alternately long and short. The 

 insect lies with its abdomen at the little black spot 

 which is always found at one end of the cocoon. 



On Tuesday, the 20th of September, I was sum- 

 moned to see a vast congregation of brown ants 

 {Formica fusca) on an old elm stump. I found the 

 males and females just preparing to swarm. All 

 the neuters were in the mosf intense excitement, 

 and were running all over the stump with the 

 greatest celerity. The females were climbing to 



