822 MIXED ANT-HILL 
ground chambers *, did not quit their 
position, but to approach the Ash-colour- 
ed Ants, whose assistance was a point of 
vital importance. I saw none of them 
approach the larvae or pupze, or touch the 
provisions I had placed within reach ; 
nor did meat and honey ever tempt them. 
I witnessed, in its fullest extent, the great 
care with which the auxiliaries treated 
them; the latter were constantly oceu- 
pied in nourishing and brushing them ; 
carrying them from one quarter of the 
ant-hill to another; conducting them 
where the temperature was highest, re- 
* The ceiling or roof of the chambers in which 
these insects are lodged, appears to constitute their 
favourite residence. This I found to be the case 
with some female ants I kept in confinement. It is 
highly probable this position against gravity is 
maintained by means of an apparatus similar to 
what Sir Everard Home has observed in regard to 
the house-fly, of which he has given a full descrip- 
tion, in the Philosophical Transactions, for 1816. 
It is, no doubt, upon this principle, that ants are 
enabled to walk perpendicularly up walls, bearing in 
their pincers insects (of which we haye many in- 
stances) considerably larger and heavier than them- 
selves, — T. 
