INSTINCT IN INSECTS. 



17 



ject, and reached it. This was the nest of another e pedes of ants, 

 blackish-gray ones, whose hill rose in the grass twenty steps from the 

 hedge. A few blacldsh-gray ones were scattered about the hill ; as 

 soon as these perceived the enemy, they darted upon the stranger?, 

 while others hurry into the galleries to give the alarm. The besieged 

 ants come out in a body. The assailants dash upon them, and, after a 

 very short but very spirited sti - uggle, drive the black-gray ones back 

 to the bottom of their holes. One army corps presses after them into the 

 galleries, while other groups labor to make themselves an opening with 

 their teeth into the lateral parts of the hill. They succeed, and the 

 remainder of the troop makes its way into the besieged city by the 

 breach. Peter Huber had seen battles and exterminations of ants be- 

 fore this ; he supposed they were slaughtering each other in the depths 

 of the caverns. What was his amazement, after three or four minutes, 

 when he saw the assailants issue hurriedly forth again, each holding 

 between its mandibles a larva or a nympha of the conquered tribe ! 

 The aggressors took exactly the same road again by which they had 

 come, passed through the hedge, crossed the road, at the same place, 

 and made their way, still loaded with their prey, toward a field of ripe 

 grain, into which the honest citizen of Geneva, respecting another's 

 property, refrained, with regret, from following them. 



This expedition, worthy of the annals of barbarian piracy, inspired 

 Huber with an amazement easy to understand. He examined, and 

 discovered, to his great surprise, that some ant-hills were inhabited in 

 common by two kinds of ants, forming two castes. He designates 

 one of these by the name of " amazon or legionary ants; a name 

 strongly suggesting their martial character," he says. The others he 

 calls, very justly, " auxiliaries." The amazons do not work ; their duty 

 is fighting and carrying off" the nymphce and larvse. They choose the . 

 hour toward sunset for their warlike raids against the industrious and 

 peaceable tribes of the neighborhood. Whenever the weather is fine,, 

 they sally out thus, and levy their .tribute of flesh. The auxiliaries,, 

 for their part, are employed in all internal duties, and in keeping up 

 and repairing the dwelling. They alone open and close the entrance* 

 to the ant-hill, night and morning ; they alone (in the species observed 

 by P. Huber) go after provisions, for they feed the whole establish- 

 ment, even the legionaries, which are idle except when on their forays ; 

 they rear with equal care the larvse of the legionaries and those that 

 are stolen ; they alone, in fine, seem to decide upon the material inter- 

 ests of the community, the requisite enlargements, the need of emigra- 

 tion, and the place suitable for it. Peter Huber made one experiment 

 that shows very plainly the absolute dependence of the amazons upon 

 their associates. These fierce warriors do not understand any house- 

 hold work. Huber put thirty amazons into a glazed drawer, covered, 

 with earth on the bottom, with a certain number of larvse and of 

 nympha?, both of their own kind and of the auxiliary species.. A little- 

 vol. in. 2 



