98 FECUNDATION OF ANTS. 
of workers, who are continually running 
from one male to another, touching them 
with their antenne, and offering them 
food. 
The males, at length, quit the paternal 
roof and take flight, as from one general 
impulse, in which they are quickly fol- 
lowed by the females. The winged tribe 
soon disappear. ‘The workers retrace for 
some instants the steps of these highly fa- 
voured beings, to whom they have shown 
such extreme care and attention, and 
whom they are never destined to see more. 
Many pleasing pictures are exhibited 
by the variety in colour and form of this 
assemblage of insects. In some, the whole 
body is of one uniform colour; the 
workers being yellow, the males black, 
and the females flaxen. Their wings 
display all the brilliant hues of the rain- 
bow. In others, the body of the workers 
is of a dark ash-colour, stained with red 
upon the corslet ; the males, whose body 
is a deep black, have the feet of a fine 
yellow, and the wings whitish; the fe- 
males have the corslet and abdomen 
