380 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



me some particulars with respect to a species of ant in Sierra Leone, 

 which proves the same point. He says that they march in columns that 

 exceed all powers of numeration, and always pursue a straight course, 

 from which nothing can cause them to deviate : if they come to a house 

 or other building, they storm or undermine it ; if a river comes across 

 them, though millions perish in the attempt, they endeavor to swim 

 over it. 



This quality of perseverance in ants on one occasion led to very 

 important results, which affected a large portion of this habitable globe ; 

 for the celebrated conqueror Timour, being once forced to take shelter 

 from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat alone many hours, 

 desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless condition, he fixed his 

 observation upon an ant that was carrying a grain of corn (probably a 

 pupa) larger than itself up a high wall. Numbering the efforts that it made 

 to accomplish this object, he found that the grain fell sixty-nine times to 

 the ground, but the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. "This 

 sight (said Timour) gave me courage at the moment ; and I have never 

 forgotten the lesson it conveyed."^ 



Madame Merian, in her Surinam Insects, speaking of the large^headed 

 ant {Atta cephalotes), affirms that, if they wish to emigrate, they will 

 construct a living bridge in this manner: — One individual first fixes itself 

 to a piece of wood by means of its jaws, and remains stationary ; with 

 this a second connects itself; a third takes hold of the second, and a 

 fourth of the third, and so on, till a long connected line is formed fastened 

 at one extremity, which floats, exposed to the wind, till the other end is 

 blown over so as to fix itself to the opposite side of the stream, when the 

 rest of the colony pass over upon it, as a bridge.^ This is the process, as 

 far as I can collect it from her imperfect account. As she is not always 

 very correct in her statements, I regarded this as altogether fabulous, till I 

 met with the following history of a similar proceeding in De Azara, which 

 induces me to give more credit to it. 



He tells us, that in low districts in South America that are exposed to 

 inundations, conical hills of earth may be observed, about three feet high, 

 and very near to each other, which are inhabited by a little black ant. 

 When an inundation takes place, they are heaped together out of the nest 

 into a circular mass, about a foot in diameter and four fing-ers in depth. 

 Thus they remain floating upon the water while the inundation continues. 

 One of the sides of the mass which they form is attached to some sprig 

 of grass, or piece of wood ; and when the waters are retired, they return 

 to their habitation. When they wish to pass from one plant to another, 

 they may often be seen formed into'a bridge, of two palms' length, and 

 of the breadth of a finger, which has no other support than that of its two 

 extremities. One would suppose that their own weight would sink ihem ; 

 but it is certain that the masses remain floating during the inundation, 

 which lasts some days.^ 



You must now be fully satiated with this account of the constant 

 fatigue and labor to which our little pismires are doomed by the law of 



1 Related in the Quarterly Review for August, 1816, p. 259. 



^ Insect. Surinam, p. 18. In her plate the ants are represented so connected. 



^ Voyages dans VAmirique Mirid. i. 187, 



