82 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



after a stout resistance the latter, renouncing all defence, 

 endeavour to make off to a distance with the pupas they 

 have heaped up : — the host of assailants pursues, and 

 strives to force from them these objects of their care. 

 Many also enter the formicary, and begin to carry off 

 the young brood that are left in it. A continued chain 

 of ants engaged in this employment extends from nest to 

 nest, and the day and part of the night pass before all is 

 finished. A garrison being left in the captured city, on 

 the following morning the business of transporting the 

 brood is renewed. It often happens (for this species of 

 ant loves to change its habitation) that the conquerors 

 emigrate with all their family to the acquisition which 

 their valour has gained. All the incursions of F. san- 

 giiinea take place in the space of a month, and they 

 make only five or six in the year. They will sometimes 

 travel 150 paces to attack a negro colony. 



After reading this account of expeditions undertaken 

 by ants for so extraordinary a purpose, you will be cu- 

 rious to know how the slaves are treated in the nests of 

 these marauders — whether they live happily, or labour 

 under an oppressive yoke. You must recollect that they 

 are not carried off, like our negroes, at an age when the 

 amor j)atrice and all the charities of life which bind them 

 to their country, kindred and friends, are in their full 

 strength, but in what may be called the helpless days of 

 infancy, or in their state of repose, before they can have 

 formed any associations or imbibed any notions that 

 render one place and society more dear to them than 

 another. Preconceived ideas, therefore, do not exist to 

 influence their happiness, which must altogether depend 

 upon the treatment which they experience at the hands 



