422 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 



and confusion ; and all the winged ants, agitated by some violent 

 impulse, are leaving their homes, and, bent on emigration, swarm 

 by myriads in the air, to the great emolument of the hirundines, 

 which fare luxuriously. Those that escape the swallows return 

 no more to their nests, but looking out for fresh settlements, lay 

 a foundation for future colonies. All the females at this time 

 are pregnant; the males that escape being eaten, wander away 

 and die. 



October 2nd. Flying-ants, male and female, usually swarm and 

 migrate on hot sunny days in August and September : but this 

 day a vast emigration took place in my garden, and myriads came 

 forth, in appearance from the drain which goes under the fruit- 

 wall, filling the air and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their 

 numbers. The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is 

 probably owing to the backward wet season. The day following, 

 not one flying ant was to be seen. 



Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies which they 

 have caught, and the aureliae of smaller ants, which they seize by 

 violence. WHITE. 



In my "Naturalist's Calendar" for the year 1777, on Septem- 

 ber 6th, I find the following note to the article Flying Ants. 



I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the top 

 of some tall elm-trees (close by my house) ; some were continu- 

 ally dropping to the ground, as if from the trees, and others 

 rising up from the ground ; many of them were joined together 

 in copulation ; and I imagine their life is but short, for as soon 

 as produced from the egg by the heat of the sun, they propa- 

 gate their species, and soon after perish. They were black, 

 somewhat like the small black ant, and had four wings. I saw 

 also, at another place, a large sort, which were yellowish. On the 

 8th September, 1785, I again observed the same circumstance of 

 a vast number of these insects flying near the tops of the elms 

 and dropping to the ground. 



On the 2nd March, 1777, I saw great numbers of ants come 

 out of the ground. MARKWICK. 



