GOVERNMENT OF ANTS. 297 



directs the labourers to surround the queen at this pe- 

 riod, * and carry oft' the eggs as soon as laid to nurse- 

 ries prepared for the purpose, where they attend them 

 till hatched, and then provide for the wants of the 

 young. The royal cell is also provided with a few 

 soldiers, who seem to do the duty of a body-guard 

 to the king and queen ; and the surrounding apart- 

 ments always contain a number of both labourers and 

 soldiers in waiting, that they may be in readiness when 

 wanted to attend upon and defend the common father 

 and mother, on whose safety the happiness and even 

 the existence of the whole community depend ; and 

 whom these faithful subjects never abandon, even 

 in the last distress. Yet withal it does not appear 

 that they exert the least authority, or indeed that any 

 part of the population rules another. All seem to 

 know their several duties, and to perform them with- 

 out being ordered or commanded ; and consequently 

 no police nor punishments for neglect or breach of 

 order are required — a state of things which is in a 

 great measure inconceivable, were we to take human 

 society as a standard, in which there are always so 

 many of the selfish passions in active play as to 

 produce incessant breaches of the admirable order 

 and mutual subordination, without individual supe- 

 riority, conspicuous in these insect communities. 



GOVERNMENT OF ANTS. [Formicidm.) 



The charter according to which a community of 

 ants is regulated, resembles very much that of the 

 termites, the exceptions being rather in the details 

 than in the leading principle. The worker ants, for 

 example, are ascertained to be females imperfectly 

 developed, incapable of producing eggs ; but hence, 

 the better capable of attending to the nursing of the 

 young hatched from the eggs of the perfect females, 



* See Figure in Insect Transformations, p. 15. 



