PERFECT SOCIETIES OP INSECT?. 49 



Histori/ of Ants is likewise extremely valuable, not only 

 as giving a systematic arrangement and descriptions of 

 the species, but as concentrating the accounts of pre- 

 ceding authors, and adding several interesting facts ex 

 propria penu. The great historiographer of ants, how- 

 ever, is IM. P. Iluber ; who has lately published a most 

 admirable and interesting work upon them, in which 



discovered that they then act the part of neuters in the care of their pro- 

 geny. He knew also, that when there was more than one queen in a 

 rest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony. 



With respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they pay 

 their queens or fertile females, continued even after their death; — this 

 homage, he however observes, which is noticed by no other author, ap- 

 pears often to be temporary and local — ceasing- at certain times, and 

 being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges upon their ex- 

 emplary care of the eggs, larvae, and pupae. He tells us that the eggs, as 

 soon as laid, are taken by the neuters and deposited in heaps, and that 

 the neuters brood them. — He particularly notices their carrying them, 

 ■w ith the larvje and pupae, daily from the interior to the surface of the 

 nest and back again, according to the temperature ; and that they feed 

 the larvae by disgorging the food from their own stomach. — He speaks 

 also of their opening the cocoons when the pupae are ready to assume i\\Q 

 imago, and disengaging them from them. With regard to their labours, 

 he found that they work all night, except during violent rains :— that their 

 instinct varies as to the station of their nest : — that their masonry is con- 

 solidated by no cement, but consists merely of mould; — that they form 

 roads and trackways to and from their nests: — that they carry each other 

 in sport, and sometimes lie heaped one on another in the sun. — He su- 

 spects that they occasionally emigrate ;— he iwoves by a variety of ex- 

 periments that they do not hoard up provisions. — He found they were 

 often infested by a particular kind of Gordius : — he had noticed also, that 

 the neuters of F. rufa axidjlava (which escaped M. Huber, though he ob- 

 served It in F. rufescens, Latr.) are of two sizes, which the writer of this 

 note can confirm by producing specimens: — and lastly, with Swammet- 

 dam, he had recourse to astificial colonies, the belter to enable him to 

 examine their proceedings, but not comparable to the ingenious appara>- 

 tus of M. Iluber. 



VOL. II. E 



