HYMENOPTERA. 



391 



The Russet Ant has mandibles made for war ; they appear cut out 

 for struggHng and lighting. The Blood-red Ants are less ferocious ; 

 they work themselves, and make none of those sweeping raids by 

 which the Russet Ants depopulate the neighbouring ant-hills. 



What Peter Huber has done for bees, Francis Huber, his son, 

 has done for the ants. It is from Francis Huber that we borrow the 

 description which it remains for us to give of the habits of ants in 

 times of war. He thus relates one of these expeditions, of which he 

 was a witness : — " On the 17th of June, 1804," says he, ''as 1 was 

 walking in the environs of Geneva, between four and five in the 

 afternoon, I saw at my feet a legion of largish russet ants crossing 

 the road. They were marching in a body with rapidity, their troop 

 occupied a space of from eight to ten feet long by three or four 

 inches wide ; in a few minutes they had entirely evacuated the road ; 

 they penetrated through a very thick hedge, and went into a meadow, 

 whither I followed them. They wound their way along the turf, 

 without straying, and their column remained always continuous, in 

 spite of the obstacles which they had to surmount Very soon they 

 arrived near a nest of ashy-black ants, the dome of which rose among 

 the grass, at twenty paces from the hedge. A few ants of this species 

 were at the door of their habitation. As soon as they descried the 

 army which was approaching, they threw themselves on those which 

 were at the head of the cohort. The alarm spread at the same 

 instant in the interior of the nest, and their companions rushed out 

 in crowds from all the subterranean passages. The russet ants, the 

 body of whose army was only two paces distant, hastened to arrive 

 at the foot of the nest ; the whole troop precipitated itself forward 

 at the same time, and knocked the ashy-black ants head over 

 heels, who, after a short but very smart combat, retired to the 

 extremity of the habitation. The russet ants clambered up the sides 

 of the hillock, flocked to the summit, and introduced themselves in 

 great numbers into the first avenues ; other groups worked with their 

 teeth, making a lateral aperture. In this they succeeded, and the 

 rest of the army penetrated through the breach into the besieged 

 city. They did not make a long stay there ; in three or four minutes 

 the russet ants came out again in haste, by the same adits, carrying 

 each one in its mouth a pupa or larva belonging to the conquered. 

 They again took exactly the same road by which they had come, and 

 followed each other in a straggling manner ; their line was easily to 

 be distmguished on the grass by the appearance which chis multitude 

 of white cocoons and larvae, carried by as many russet-coloured ants, 

 presented. They passed through the hedge a second time, crossed 



