AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 241 



of some species of humble-bees. The same may be said of wasps, ants, 

 and termites, of which, though there is a vast variety of different kinds, 

 we are acquainted with the history of but a very few. You will not 

 therefore expect more than a sketch of the most interesting traits of affec- 

 tion for their young manifested by the common species of each genus. 



One circumstance must be premised with regard to the education of 

 the young of most of those insects which live in society, truly extraor- 

 dinary, and without parallel in any other department of nature ; namely, 

 that this office, except under particular circumstances, is not undertaken 

 by the female which has given birth to them, but by the workers, or 

 neuters, as they are sometimes called, which, though bound to the offspring 

 of the common mother of the society by no other than fraternal ties, 

 exhibit towards them all the marks of the most ardent parental affection, 

 building habitations for their use, feeding them, and tending them with 

 incessant solicitude, and willingly sacrificing their lives in defence of the 

 precious charge. Thus sterility itself is made an instrument of the pres- 

 ervation and multiplication of species ; and females too fruitful to educate 

 all their young are indulged by Providence with a privilege without which 

 nine tenths of their progeny must perish. 



The most determined despiser of insects and their concerns — he who 

 never deigned to open his eyes to any other part of their economy — must 

 yet have observed, even in spite of himself, the remarkable attachment 

 which the inhabitants of a disturbed nest of ants manifest towards certain 

 small white oblong bodies with which it is usually stored. He must have 

 perceived that the ants are much less intently occupied with providing for 

 their own safety, than in carrying off these little bodies to a place of secu- 

 rity. To effect this purpose the whole community is in motion, and no 

 danger can divert them from attempting its accomplishment. An observer 

 liaving cut an ant in two, the poor mutilated animal did not relax in its 

 affectionate exertions. With that half of the body to which the head 

 remained attached it contrived previously to expiring to carry off ten of 

 these white masses into the interior of the nest ! You will readily divine 

 that these attractive objects are the young of the ants in one of the first or 

 imperfect states. They are, in fact, not the eggs, as they are vulgarly 

 called, but the pupae, which the working ants tend with the most patient 

 assiduity. But I must give you a more detailed account of their operations, 

 beginning with the actual eggs. 



These, which are so small as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, as 

 soon as deposited by the queen ant, who drops them at random in her 

 progress through the nest, are taken charge of by the workers, who imme- 

 diately seize them and carry them in their mouths, in small parcels, inces- 

 santly turning them backwards and forwards with their tongue for the pur- 

 pose of moistening them, without which they would come to nothing. They 

 then lay them in heaps, which they place in separate apartments^ and 

 constantly tend until hatched into larvae ; frequently in the course of the 

 day removing them from one quarter of the nest to another, as they require 

 a warmer or cooler, a moister or drier atmosphere ; and at intervals brooding 

 over them as if to impart a genial warmth.^ Experiments have been made 

 to ascertain whether these assiduous nurses could distinguish their eggs if 



» Huber, 69. « De Geer, ii. 1099. 



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