PAIRING OP ANTS. 245 



numerous either to be guarded or fed. There seems, 

 indeed, to be a iniitbrm disposition in the winged 

 ones to desert their native colony; and as they never 

 return after pairing", it would soon become depopu- 

 lated in the absence of females. In such a case, 

 indeed, the workers would give up their industry, 

 and would soon wander away and perish. But 

 when they succeed in retaining a few females 

 amongst them, they renew their labours with fresh 

 ardour. 



One circumstance is of importance to be con- 

 sidered. The actual pairing does not seem to take 

 place within the ant-hill, and we have observed 

 scouts posted all around, ready to discover and carry 

 back to the colony as many fertile females as they 

 could meet with. Nay, we are quite certain that whole 

 colonies have been thus dispersed, and when they 

 did not find fertile females near their encampment, 

 they have gone farther and farther till they found 

 them, and when it was deemed too far, never re- 

 turned, but commenced a number of new establish- 

 ments, according to their convenience. This, as it 

 appears to us, accounts, in the only rational way, for 

 the existence of so many colonies of the same spe- 

 cies, frequently found near each other in particular 

 localities. We have witnessed two instances in 

 which populous colonies were in this manner com- 

 pletely broken up, and their original city abandoned 

 by the workers, who had dispersed in pursuit of the 

 fertile females which had escaped. One was the 

 ash-coloured ant {Fonnica fusca), the other the 

 red ant (Myrmica rubra) ; and an instance of the 

 latter has just occurred to us in which a numerous 

 establishment was, in the same way, reduced, within 

 a few days, to two or three dozen ; and these would 

 probably have been dispersed in the same way, had 

 they not been successful in capturing and retaining 



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