^80 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



They had by this time constructed large vaulted 

 chambers, avenues, and lodges; they first brought olT 

 the pup£e and larvae, and then the males and the fe- 

 males. When the removal was complete, they for 

 ever abandoned the artificial ant-hill, and the road 

 leading thereto. 



' Upon opening the shutter of my formicary whilst 

 the emigration on the exterior was in full activity, all 

 appeared tranquil within; those recruiting arrived 

 at the very gate of the ant-hill, but the ants, who 

 were not immediately the object of their search, paid 

 no attention to their proceedings; they continued, as 

 usual, their ordinary avocations, and did not appear 

 to suspect what was going forward so near them. 

 It now and then happens that several workers un- 

 dertake at the same time to found a new city, and con- 

 duct there the whole colony, which gives place to a 

 temporary existence of several ant-hills; but these in- 

 sects are soon aware of this division, and do not delay 

 in the last recruiting to bring the whole colony into 

 one encampment. 



^ When the ants are displeased with the city they 

 have chosen, they quit it for a third, and sometimes 

 even for a fourth, where they definitively fix. We 

 even see them very frequently return to the ancient 

 nest before being fully established in the new. The 

 recruiting then takes place in a contrary direction, 

 and the couples meet each other in the same road, 

 but the last has always the advantage over the pre- 

 ceding emigrations. When the new ant-hill is at a 

 considerable distance from the old, the ants com- 

 monly establish some intermediate residence, in which 

 they deposit the recruits, the larvae, the males, and 

 the females, which they are unable to carry in one 

 journey to their proper destination. I have seen 

 several relays established upon the same route; they 



