304 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



workers were eng-aged in clearing the passages by 

 removing the materials which were out of place ; a 

 great number of their companions taking at the same 

 time their repose, and appearing to be fast asleep : 

 but a busy scene occurred at the moment of trans- 

 porting their little ones to enjoy the warmth of the 

 sun. When the sun's rays fell upon the exterior 

 portion of the nest, the ants which were then on the 

 surface descended with great rapidity to the bottom 

 of the ant-hill, struck with their antennae the other 

 ants, ran one after the other, and jostled their com- 

 panions, who mounted at the moment under the bell- 

 glass and redescended with the same speed, putting 

 in their turn the whole colony in motion, so that we 

 could observe a swarm of workers filling up all the 

 passages ; but what proved still more their intention 

 by these movements, was the violence with luhich the 

 workers seized^ with their matidibles, those who did 

 not apjjear to understand them^ dragging them 

 forth to the top of the ant-hill, and immediately 

 leaving them, to go and seek those still remaining 

 with the young*." 



Gould's testimony to the same circumstance is still 

 more pointed, and he is of oj)inion that they kill 

 and devour individuals which from accident or illness 

 are unfit to labour for the benefit of the common 

 weal, as the hive-bees massacre their males. " The 

 red colonies," he says, " are the only ones I could 

 ever observe to feed upon their own species. You 

 may frequently discern a party of from five or six to 

 twenty surrounding one of their own kind, or even 

 fraternity, and pulling it to pieces. The ant they 

 attack is generally feeble and of a languid com- 

 plexion, occasioned, perhaps, by some disorder or 

 other accident t-" An old naturalist mentions a very 

 similar circumstance in still stronger terms. " If," 

 * On Ants, p. 73. t Account of English Ants, p. 104. 



