MIGRATIONS OP INSECTS. 277 



concern was to form a covert way at the end, 

 which terminated in the new estabUshment. Along 

 this high-road might be seen the busy inhabitants 

 carrying' oft' eggs and pupae from their former domi- 

 cile, and in the earher part of the removal some 

 were carrying their companions, for the purpose 

 of showing them the road ; but when once it was 

 sufficiently imbued with their odour to be recog- 

 nised, this clumsy method of imparting information 

 was given up. We found, however, that we could 

 again set them upon the carrying process by pressing 

 our foot across their track, or otherwise obliterating 

 the odour left by their previous passengers. In 

 this case, an emigrant is completely bewildered the 

 instant he arrives at the broken line, as much as a 

 hound would be if a bush-harrow had been dragged 

 across the track of the hare or the fox, of which he 

 is in chase. 



In another garden, in which there are at least a 

 dozen colonies of the turf-ant and of the red ant 

 (Myrmica rubra), we seldom go round it without 

 seeing some of them moving their pupae to a newly 

 selected spot, or dragging each other from one chink 

 in the soil or plot of grass to another. A notice to 

 quit the settlement is generally obeyed with alacrity, 

 the whole colony immediately undertaking the labour 

 of constructing a new encampment, as well as of 

 removing thither all that they esteem most valuable, 

 following the individual ant that first decides on the 

 new location, (as the Americans term it)*. 



These observations, in which we took more interest 

 and pleasure than most readers may do in the pe- 

 rusal of our imperfect sketch, were, we confess, sug- 

 gested by the curious details of Huber, without which 

 they might have escaped our notice ; but every body 



* J. R. 



2b 



