PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 85 



were ready to be developed ; and preserved the life of 

 the neuter rufescents that still survived. What a 

 picture of beneficent industry, contrasted with the 

 baleful effects of sloth, does this interesting anecdote 

 afford ! Another experiment which he tried made the 

 contrast equally striking-. He put a large portion of 

 one of these mixed colonies into a woollen bag, in the 

 mouth of which he fixed a small tube of wood, glazed 

 at the top, which at the other end was fitted to the en- 

 trance of a kind of hive. The second day the tube was 

 crowded with negroes going and returning : — the inde- 

 fatigable diligence and activity manifested by them in 

 transporting the young brood and their rufescent mas- 

 ters, whose bodies were suspended upon their man- 

 dibles, v/as astonishing. These last took no active 

 part in the busy scene, while their slaves showed the 

 greatest anxiety about them, generally carrying them 

 into the hive ; and if they sometimes contented them- 

 selves with depositing them at the entrance of the tube, 

 it was that they might use greater dispatch in fetching 

 the rest. The rufescent when thus set down remained 

 for a moment coiled up without motion, and then lei- 

 surely unrolling itself, looked all around, as if it was 

 quite at a loss what direction to take ; — it next went 

 up to the negroes, and by the play of its antenuEB seemed 

 to implore their succour, till one of them attending to 

 it conducted it into the hive. 



Beings so entirely dependent, as these masters are 

 upon their slaves, for every necessary, comfort, and 

 enjoyment of their life, can scarcely be supposed to treat 

 them with rigour or unkindness : — so far from this, it is 

 evident from the preceding details, that they rather 



