350 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



the history of ants : — the principle of these are Leeuwenhoek, Swann- 

 inerdam (who was the first that had recourse to artificial means for 

 observing their proceedings), Linne, Bonnet, and especially the illustrious 

 Swedish entomologist De Geer. Gould also, who, though no systematical 

 naturalist, was a man of sense and observation, has thrown great light 

 upon the history of ants, and anticipated several of what are accounted 

 the discoveries of more modern writers on this subject.^ Latreille's 

 Natural History of Ants is likewise extremely valuable, not only as 

 giving a systematic arrangement and descriptions of the species, but as 

 concentrating the accounts of preceding authors, and adding several inter- 

 esting facts ex proprio perm. The great historiographer of ants, how- 

 ever, is M. P. Huber, who has lately published a most admirable and 

 interesting work upon them, in which he has far outstripped all his prede- 

 cessors. Such are the sources from which the following account of ants 

 is principally drawn, intermixed with which you will find some occasional 



' M. P. Huber, in the nccoiint which, in imitation of De Geer, he has given of the dis- 

 coveries made by his predecessors in the history of ants, having passed without notice, 

 probably ignorant of the existence of snch a writer, those of our intelligent countryman 

 Gould, i shall here give a short analysis of them ; from which it will appear that he was 

 one of their best, or rather their ver> best historian, till M. Ruber's work came out. His 

 Account of English Ants was publislied in 1747, long before either Linne or De Geer had 

 written upon the subject. , 



I. Species. He describes five species of English ants; viz. 1. The hill ant (Formica rvfa 

 L.) 2. The jet ant {F. fuligiiiosa. Latr.) 3. The red ant (Mi/rmica rubra. Latr., Formica 

 Lin.) He observes, that this species alone is armed with a sting ; whereas the others make 

 a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid into it. 4. The common yellow 

 ant {F.Jiava Latr.). And 5. The small black ant (F.fiisca L.). 



II. Egg. He observes that the eggs producing males and females are laid the earliest, 

 and are the largest : — he seems, however, to have confounded the black and brown eggs of 

 Aphides with those of ants. 



III. Larva. These, when first -hatched, he observes, are hairy, and continue in the larva 

 state twelve months or more. He, as well as De Geer, was aware that the larvce of Myrmica 

 rubra do not, as other ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa. 



lY. Fvpa. He found that female ants continue in this state about six weeks, and males 

 and neuters only a month. 



V. Imago. He knew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that females cast their wings 

 previously to their becoming mothers; that at the time of their swarms large numbers of 

 both sexes become the prey of birds and fishes; that the surviving females, sometimes in 

 numbers, go under ground, particularly in mole hills, and lay eggs : but he had not dis- 

 covered that they then act the part of neuters in the care of their progeny. He knew also, 

 that when there was more than one queen in a nest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony. 



With respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they pay their queens or fertile 

 females continued even after their death ; — this hoinage he, liowever, observes, which is 

 noticed by no other author, appears often to be temporary and local — ceasing at certain 

 times, and being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges upon their exemplary 

 care of the eggs, larvse, and pupae. He tells us that the eggs, as soon as laid, are taken by 

 the neuters and deposited in heaps, and that the neuters brood them. He particularly 

 notices their carrying them, with the larvaj and pupse, daily from the interior to the surface 

 of the nest and back again, according to the temperature ; and that they feed the larvae by 

 disgorging the food from their own stomach. He speaks also of their opening the cocoons 

 when the pupcc are ready to assume the imago, and disengaging them from them. AVilh 

 regard to their labors, he found that they work all night, except during violent rnins; that 

 their instinct varies as to the station of their nests ; that their masonry is consolidated by 

 no cement, but consists merely of mould ; that they form roads and trackways to and from 

 their nests ; that they carry each other in sport, and sometimes lie heaped one on another 

 in the sun. He suspects that they occasionally emigrate : — he proves hy a variety of ex- 

 periments that they do not hoard up provisions. He found they were often infested hy a 

 particular kind of Gordius : — he had noticed, also, that the neuters of F. rvfa and flava 

 (which escaped M. Huber, though he observed it in Pohjergiis rufescens Latr.) are of two 

 sizes, which the writer ol' this note can confirm by producing specimens , — and, lastly, with 

 Svvammerdam, he had recourse to artificial colonies, the better to enable him to examine 

 their proceedings, but not comparable to the ingenious apparatus of M. Huber. 



