PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 99 



Some lash the stragglers to the task assign'd. 

 Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind : 

 They crowd the peopled path in thick array, 

 Glow at the work, and darken all the way." 

 Bonnet, observing that ants always keep the same track 

 both in going from and returning to their nest, imagines 

 that their paths are imbued with the strong scent of the 

 formic acid, which serves to direct them ; but, as Huber 

 remarks, though this may be of some use to them, their 

 other senses must be equally employed, since it is evident, 

 when they have made any discovery of agreeable food, 

 that they possess the means of directing dieir companions 

 to it, though it is scarcely possible that the path can 

 have been sufficiently impregnated with the acid for them 

 to trace their way to it by scent. Indeed the recruiting 

 system described above, proves that it requires some 

 pains to instruct ants in the way from an old to a new 

 nest; whereas, were they directed by scent, after a suf- 

 ficient number had passed to and fro to imbue the path 

 with the acid, there would be no occasion for further de- 

 portations^. 



Though ants have no mechanical inventions to di- 

 minish the quantum of labour, yet by numbers, strength, 

 and perseverance they effect what at first sight seems 

 quite beyond their powers. Their strength is wonder- 

 ful : I once, as I formerly observed, saw two or three of 

 them haling along a young snake not dead, which was 

 of the thickness of a goose-quill''. St. Pierre relates, that 

 he was highly amused with seeing a number of ants car- 

 rying ofl' a Patagonian centipede. They had seized it 

 by all its legs, and bore it along as workmen do a large 



' CEuv. de Bonnet, i. 535. Huber, 197. ' Vol. I. 258. 



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