244 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



influence of this divine principle of love for their offspring. When, 

 indeed, a colony is established and peopled, they have enough to do to 

 furnish it with eggs to produce its necessary supply of future females, 

 males, and workers, which, according to Gould, are laid at three different 

 seasons.^ This is the ordinary duty assigned to them by Providence. 

 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 creatures. If you have paid any attention to what is 

 going forward 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 examination exhibit a small portion of their base, 

 or the sockets in which 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 upper 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 favor. But when 

 once connubial rites are celebrated, the unhappy husband dies, and the 

 widowed bride seeks only how she may provide for their mutual offspring. 

 Panting no more to join the choir of aerial dancers, her only thought is 

 to construct a subterranean abode in which she may deposit and attend 

 to her eggs, and cherish her embryo young, till, having passed through 

 their various changes, they arrive at their perfect state, and she can 

 devolve upon them a portion of her maternal cares. Her ample wings, 

 which before were her chief ornament and the instruments of her pleasure, 

 are now an incumbrance which incommode her in the fulfillment of the 

 great duty uppermost in her mind ; she, therefore, without a moment's 

 hesitation, plucks them from her shoulders. Might we not then address 

 females who have families in words like those of Solomon, " Go to the 

 ant, ye mothers ; consider her ways and be wise ? " 



M. P. Huber was more than once witness to this proceeding. He saw 

 one female stretch her wings with a strong effort so as to bring them 

 before her head — she then crossed them in all directions — next she 

 reversed them alternately on each side — at last, in consequence of some 

 violent contortions, the four wings fell at the same moment in his pre- 

 sence. Another, in addition to these motions, used her legs to assist in 

 the work.^ 



Thus, from the very moment of the extrusion of the egg to the matu- 

 rity of the perfect insect, are the ants unremittingly occupied in the care 

 of the young of the society, and that with an ardor of affectionate attach- 



1 p. 35. « Huber, 110. 



^ Huber, 109. — Gould had, long before Huber, observed that female ants cast their 

 ■wings, pp. 59, 62. 64. I have frequently observed them, sometimes with only one wing, 

 at others with only fragments of the wings ; and again, at others they were so completely 

 pulled oft", that it could not be known that they formerly had them, only by the sockets in 

 which they were inserted. 



