114 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



story. I had not advanced far in this attempt, when 

 I discovered an apartment containing an assemblage 

 of little eggs, which were for the most part of the 

 colour of ebony. Several ants surrounded and ap- 

 peared to take great care of them, and endeavoured, 

 as quickly as possible, to convey them from my sight. 

 1 seized upon this chamber, its inhabitants, and the 

 treasure it contained. 



' The ants did not abandon these eggs to make 

 their escape; a stronger instinct retained them: they 

 hastened to conceal them under the small dwelling 

 which I held in my hand, and when I reached home, 

 I drew them from it, to observe them more attentively. 

 Viewed with a microscope, they appeared nearly of 

 the form of ants' eggs, but their colour was entirely 

 different; the greater part were black; others were of 

 a cloudy yellow. I found them in several ant-hills, 

 and obtained them of ditierent degrees in shade; they 

 were not all black and yellow; some were brown, of a 

 slight and also of a brilliant red and white; others 

 were of a colour less distinct, as straw colour, grayish, 

 and I remarked that they were not the same colour at 

 both extremities. 



' To observe them more closely, I placed them in 

 the corner of a box iaced with glass; they were col- 

 lected in a heap like the eggs of ants; their guardians 

 seemed to value them highly; after having visited them, 

 they placed one part in the earth, but I witnessed the 

 attention they bestowed upon the rest; they approach- 

 ed them, slightly separating their mandibles; passed 

 their tongue between each, extended them, then walk- 

 ed alternately over them, depositing, I believe, a liquid 

 substance as they proceeded. They appeared to treat 

 them exactly as if they were eggs of their own 

 species; they touched them with their antennae, and 

 frequently carried them in their mouths; they did not 

 quit these eggs a single instant; they took them 



