PAIRING OF ANTS. 



241 



A gnat separated from the rest of its kind, and in- 

 closed in a glass vessel, with air sufficient to keep 

 it alive, shall produce young, which also, when 

 separated from each other, shall be the parents of a 

 numerous progeny. Thus, down to five or six 

 generations, do these extraordinary animals propa- 

 gate in the manner of vegetables.'* It must have 

 been some dreamy recollection of v^^hat he had read 

 in Reaumur or Bonnet, whose works he elsewhere 

 quotes, that led Goldsmith into so palpable an error. 



a, Aphis of the elm ; 6, aphis of the -willow, greatly magnified ; c, com 

 mon gnat, (Culex jjipieiisj, natural size. 



PAIRING OF ANTS. 



The multitudinous population which attracts the 

 attention of the common observer in an ant-hill is 

 not composed, in the usual meaning of the terms, 

 either of males or females, they being all incapable 

 of propagation. Their chief employment is, however, 

 the female duty of nursing the rising generation of 



VOL. XII. 



♦ Animated Nature, iv, 310. 

 21 



