Oifervatlons on Ants. 153 



the latter to be employed as materials neceflary for fupporting 

 fubterraneous galleries and for giving occupation to labour- 

 ers; for their fociety, like that of the bees, confifts of males 

 and females, and a neutral fpecies, or individuals without fex. 

 tt is the latter that are charged with the internal labour, and 

 the care of nourifliing the young. The labouring ants are 

 diftinguiflied from the reft by being deftitute of wings; they 

 enjoy alfo a longer life than the males or the females, and 

 they often remain alone with the larvae in the neft. Ants 

 continue in a ftate of torpor during the winter; and it may 

 thence be prcfumed that the articles they ftore up do not 

 confift of food which they wifh to provide to afford them a 

 fupply during periods of fcarcity. Their granaries are not 

 filled with provifions, iince they ftore up, along with grains 

 of corn, bits of ftraw and all other fmall articles which they 

 can find. Naturalifts, therefore, have been miftaken refpeft- 

 jng this pretended forefight, by afcribing to a laborious infeft 

 a manoeuvre of which man alone is capable* 



The ant is not accounted venomous, yet it is more fo than 

 moft other infeils. There arifes from its body an acid vapour 

 which is not perceptible but when they are colledled in a 

 larg;e number, as in an ant-hill, or when they are heaped up 

 in a box or bottle, &c. For this reafon ants leave traces be- 

 hind them, by a fort of fcorched appearance, on the grafs 

 and plants over which they pafs and repafs in going back- 

 wards and forwards from their nefts. Gardeners, therefore, 

 liave great reafon to v.ifh for the difcovery of fome certaia 

 means that might free them from thefe troublefome guefts, 

 which fome have fuppofed to be ufeful by having feen them 

 attack the fmall infers which injure th^ leaves of fruit-trees, 

 and particularly thofc of the peach. Ants, indeed, are at- 

 tracted by the melleous liquor fhcd by fome of thefe infers, 

 and which moiftens their bodies, but they do not on that 

 account carry on war againft them ; in concert with them 

 they deftroy the plants and trees, on which they aflcmble iu 

 large bodies. 



The aht pinches very ftrongly with its mouih, whiph is 

 armed with jaws ; it pumSlures alfo by means of a (ting at 

 its extremi'.v, which is wanting in the males : it can do in- 



VoL. VTl. X jury. 



