352 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



defile before them ; traversing its ranks ; hastening to any point where 

 their presence seems necessary, especially if it have met with any obstacle 

 on its route ; and even climbing, as M. Lacordaire has often witnessed, 

 up the adjoining plants, and, perched on the margin of a leaf, surveying 

 its passage from this elevated position.^ M. Lund observed four of these 

 large-headed neuters of a Brazilian species of Myrmica to guard the 

 entrance to their nest, and others attending the column while on march, 

 and hastening to the spot and alarming their comrades when some of the 

 ants were purposely killed.^ 



An equally singular modification of form and function takes place in 

 the neuters of a Mexican ant — Myrmecocystus Mexicanus o( M. Wesmael, 

 who has described their economy in a paper read to the Academic Royale 

 of Brussels. Of this species, while some of the neuters have the ordinary 

 form, others, which never quit the nest and are almost inactive, have their 

 abdomen swollen into an immense subdiaphanous sphere, filled by a kind 

 of honey which they are solely occupied in elaborating, and which they 

 subsequently discharge into cells analogous to those of bees.^ 



Having introduced you to the individuals of which the associations of 

 ants consist, I shall now advert to the principal events of their history, 

 relating first the fates of the males and females. In the warm days that 

 occur from the end of July to the beginning of September, and sometimes 

 later, the habitations of the various species of ants may be seen to swarm 

 with winged insects, which are the males and females preparing to quit 

 for ever the scene of their nativity and education. Every thing is in 

 motion ; and the silver wings, contrasted with the jet bodies which com- 

 pose the animated mass, add a degree of splendor to the interesting scene. 

 The bustle increases, till at length the males rise, as it were by a general 

 impulse, into the air, and the females accompany them. The whole 

 swarm alternately rises and falls with a slow movement to the height of 

 about ten feet, the males flying obliquely with a rapid zigzag motion, and 

 the females, though they follow the general movement of the column, 

 appearing suspended in the air, like balloons, seemingly with no individual 

 motion, and having their heads turned towards the wind. 



Sometimes the swarms of a whole district unite their infinite myriads, 

 and, seen at a distance, produce an effect resembling the flashing of an 

 aurora-borealis. Rising with incredible velocity in distinct columns, they 

 soar above the clouds. Each column looks like a kind of slender net- 

 work, and has a tremulous undulating motion, which has been observed to 

 be produced by the regular alternate rising and falling just alluded to. 

 The noise emitted by myriads and myriads of these creatures does not 

 exceed the hum of a single wasp. The slightest zephyr disperses them ; 

 and if in their progress they chance to be over your head, if you walk 

 slowly on they will accompany you, and regulate their motions by yours. 

 The females continue sailing majestically in the centre of these number- 

 less males, who are all candidates for their favor, each till some fortunate 

 lover darts upon her, and, as the Roman youth did the Sabine virgins, 

 drags his bride from the sportive crowd, and the nuptials are consummated 



' Lacordaire, Introd. a I'Enfnm. ii. 498. 



* Lund in Ann. des Sciences Nat. xxiii. 113.; quoted by Lacordaire, 7ibi supr. and West- 

 wood. Mod. Class, ii. 225. 



^ Bull. Acad. Roy. Bntxell. v. 771. ; quoted by Westwood, ubi supr. ii. 225. 



