162 RELATION BETWEEN ANTS. 
seized the other ants by surprise, and 
dragged them out of the ant-hill, allow- 
ing them no time to offer resistance; they 
bore them off with great rapidity, and 
when they had nearly arrived to their 
new habitation, the ants suspended by 
their mandibles unrolled themselves, and 
quitted their conductors. 
The «number of recruits increases al- 
ways in rapid progression; the path com- 
municating with the two cities is filled ; 
the natal ant-hill is covered, and its sur- 
face is the theatre of their excursions and 
their enlevemens: they never return to 
the new colony, without bringing back 
some pledge of their dispatch or address. 
My glass frames often permitted me to 
see what occurred in the interior of ant- 
hills during the emigration, for when the 
labourers espied any issue that had es- 
caped my vigilance, they profited by it 
to seek another asylum. ‘They spread 
themselves at first separately over the 
floor, and observed all the corners of my 
study, hoping to discover an asylum in 
