PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 53 



pear, probably dying-, or becoming-, with many of the 

 females, the prey of birds or fish^; for, since they do 

 not return to the nest, they cannot be destroyed, as 

 some have supposed, like the drone bees, by the neu- 

 ters. That many, both males and females, become 

 the prey of fish, I am enabled to assert from my own 

 observation. — In the beginning- of August 1812, I was 

 going- up the Orford river, in Suffolk, in a row-boat, 

 in the evening-, wlien my attention was caught by an 

 infinite number of winged ants, both males and females, 

 at which the fish were every where darting, floating 

 alive upon the surface of the water. While passing 

 the river, these had probably been precipitated into it, 

 either by the wind, or by a heavy shower which had 

 just fallen. And M. Huber after the same event ob- 

 served the earth strewed with females that had lost 

 their wings, all of which could not form colonies'*. 



Captain Haverfield, R. N. gave me an account of an 

 extraordinary appearance of ants observed by him in 

 the Medway, in the autumn of 1814, when he was first- 

 lieutenant of the Clorinde — which is confirmed by the 

 following- letter, addressed by the surgeon of that ship, 

 now Dr. Bromley, to Mr. MacLeay : 



" In September 1814, being on the deck of the hulk 

 to the Clorinde, my attention was drawn to the water 

 by the first-lieutenant (Haverfield) observing there 

 was something black floating down with the tide. On 

 looking- with a glass, I discovered they were insects.—* 

 The boat was sent, and brought a bucket full of them 

 on board ; — they proved to be a large species of ant, 

 mid extended from the upper part of Salt-pan reach ou| 



* Gould, 99, ! Huber, 105, 



