PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 4-9 



has lately published a most admirable and interesting 

 woik upon them, in which he has far outstripped all his 

 predecessors. — Such are the sources from which the fol- 

 lowing account of ants is principally drawn, intermixed 

 with which you will find some occasional observations, — 

 which your partiality to your friend may, perhaps, in- 

 duce you to think not wholly devoid of interest, — that it 

 has been my fortune to make. 



The societies of ants, as also of other Hymcnoptera, 



the care of their progeny. He knew also, that when there was more 

 than one queen in a nest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony. 



Witii respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they 

 pay tiieir queens or fertile females, continued even after their death ; 

 — this liomage, he however observes, which is noticed by no other 

 author, appears often to be temporary and local — ceasing at certain 

 times, and being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges 

 upon their exemplary care of the eggs, larvae, and pupae. He tells us 

 that the eggs, as soon as laid, are taken by the neuters and deposited 

 in heaps, and that the neuters brood them. He particularly notices 

 their carrying them, with the larvae and pupae, daily from the interior 

 to]the surface of the nest and back again, according to the tempera- 

 ture ; and that they feed the larvEe by disgorging the food from their 

 own stomach. He speaks also of their opening the cocoons when the 

 pupjB are ready to assume the imago, and disengaging them from 

 them. With regard to their labours, he found that they work all 

 night, except during violent rains:— that their instinct varies as to 

 the station of their nest : — that their masonry is consolidated by no 

 cement, but consists merely of mould; — that they form roads and 

 trackways to and from their nests ;— that they carry each other in 

 sport, and sometimes lie heaj)ed one on another in the sun. — He sus- 

 pects that they occasionally emigrate;— he proves by a variety of ex- 

 periments that they do not hoard up provisions. He found they 

 were often infested by a particular kind of Gordius : — he had noticed 

 also that the neuters of F. riifa andjlavn (wliich escaped M. Hubcr, 

 though he observed it in Poli/ergus riifcscens, Latr.) are of two sizes, 

 which the writer of this note can confirm by producing specimens : 

 — and lastly, with Swammerdam, he had recourse to artificial 

 colonies, the better to enable him to examine their proceedings, but 

 not comparable to the ingenious apparatus of M. Huber. 



VOL. II. E 



