AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 209 



to. produce its necessary supply of future females, males, and workers, 

 which, according to Gould, are laid at three diiferent seasons.^ This is 

 the ordinary duty assigned to them by Providence. Yet at the first for- 

 mation 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 oviposi- 

 tion.'^ 



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 liave 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 pairs 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 favour. 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 encumbrance which incommode her in the fulfilment 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 presence. 

 Another, in addition to these motions, used her legs to assist in the 

 work.^ 



Thus, from the very moment of the extru.sion of the egg to the maturity 

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

 young of the society, and that with an ardour of affectionate attachment 

 to which, when its intensity and duration are taken into the account, we 

 may fairly say there is nothing parallel in the whole animal world.* Amongst 



^ p. 35. 2 ITuber, 110. 



3 Huber, 109. —Gould had, long before Huber, observed that the female ants cast 

 their wings, pp. 59. G2. G4. 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 off, that it could not be known that they formerly bad 

 them, only by the sockets in which they were inserted. 



4 Huber, 93. 



P 



