\6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pretty near to the foot of the nest, as one would naturally do without 

 even thinking that it ought to be done to save the insects some trouble, 

 they very soon busy themselves with putting it back in its place." To 

 save the insects some trouble ! What a love for Nature the eighteenth 

 century had, and how differently things are done nowadays ! Our 

 entomologists study their ant-hills spade in hand; a stroke of the pick 

 into the mysteries of that underground dwelling costs their feverish 

 passion for inquiry nothing, and yet what a spectacle rewards such 

 barbarity ! If the spade uncovers a house of tawny ants ( Formica 

 fused), we see under the arched top a labyrinth of low rooms, of gal- 

 leries and passages, which penetrates the ground and leads to spacious 

 chambers full of nymphae in their cocoons, or of larvae almost as mo- 

 tionless. That ant, larger than the others, which is busily coming and 

 going, is a female; for the common ants, the workmen, have no sex; 

 naturalists call them neuters. The female lays eggs, and some work- 

 ers, surrounding her, take these, one by one, and pile them in little 

 heaps. The worms, when hatched, would perish without the workers, 

 being able only to lift their heads to show their want of food ; a work- 

 er comes up and lets them take from between its mandibles such nour- 

 ishing juices as it has brought from its quest in the fields. When the 

 hour comes for carrying all these papooses into the sun, they carry 

 them up and spread them out on the arched top. If the heat is too 

 strong, or if it rains, they bring them back again at once into rooms 

 of suitable temperature. When the time of their transformation comes, 

 the larva has spun itself a cocoon, but is quite unable to get out of it 

 alone. It is the duty of the workers again to extract it ; they cut the 

 silk, tear the shell, release the weak, new-grown creature, and then the 

 old empty cocoons are stored away in a remote chamber. Thus are 

 produced males, females, and neuters. The males and females fly off; 

 some females will come back to lay eggs in the ant-hill ; the neuters 

 do not leave it. As soon as they have gained a little strength, they 

 set about all those labors that instinct teaches them the repair and 

 keeping in order of the ant-hill, inside and without, carrying of useful 

 materials, pursuing plant-lice, and gathering stores of all kinds. As- 

 suredly, these instincts alone are very wonderful ; but there remains 

 still another to be spoken of, peculiarly conferred on certain species, 

 and which is indisputably the highest of all those we know among 

 animals. 



Peter Huber discovered it on the afternoon of the 17th of June, 

 1804. The date is a memorable one for biology. He was walking in 

 the environs of Geneva, between four and five o'clock in the evening, 

 when he saw a regiment of great red ants crossing the road. They 

 marched in good order, with a front of three or four inches, and in a 

 column eight or ten feet long. Huber followed them, crossed a hedge 

 with them, and found himself in a meadow. The high grass plainly 

 hindered the march of the army, yet it did not disband; it had its ob- 



