370 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



laying the eggs, no mention is made of the female ants, 

 the real parents of the republic. You are not from this 

 to suppose that they never feel the influence of this di- 

 vine principle of love for their offspring. When, indeed, 

 a colon}' is established and peopled, they have enough 

 to do to fui-nish it with eggs to produce its necessary 

 supply of future females, males and workers ; which, ac- 

 cording to Gould, are laid at three different seasons*. 

 This is the ordinary duty assigned to them by Provi- 

 dence. Yet at the first formation of a nest, the female 

 acts the kind part, and performs all the maternal offices 

 which I have just described as peculiar to the workers; 

 and it is only when these become sufficiently numerous 

 to relieve her, that she resigns this charge and devotes 

 herself exclusively to oviposition''. 



There is one circumstance occurring at this period of 

 their history, which affords a very affecting example of 

 the self-denial and self-devotion of these admirable crea- 

 tures. If you have paid any attention to what is going 

 forwai'd in an ant-hill, you will have observed some larger 

 than the rest, which at first sight appear, as well as the 

 workers, to have no wings, but which upon a closer ex- 

 amination exhibit a small portion of their base, or the 

 sockets in wiiich they were inserted. These are females 

 that have cast their wings, not accidentally but by a 

 voluntary act. When an ant of this sex first emerges from 

 the pupa, she is adorned with two pair of wings, the up- 

 per or outer pair being larger than her body. With 

 these, when a virgin, she is enabled to traverse the fields 

 of ether, surrounded by myriads of the other sex, who 

 are candidates for her favour. But when once connu- 

 * p. 35. " Hiiber, 110. 



