286 BRITISH ANTS. 



he describes some other slave-making expeditions, etc. The 

 accuracy of his observations has been confirmed and amplified 

 by Forel and Wasmann in Europe, and by Wheeler with the sub- 

 species sanguined rubicunda in North America. 



In Britain during all the years that the habits of ants have 

 been studied, since the observations of Gould in 1747 to the present 

 time, only four records occur of a slave-raid having been witnessed 

 in our country ; it therefore seems advisable to reproduce them in 

 detail. According to Farren-White, Frederick Smith was the first 

 in England to witness the slave-making instinct in active exercise, 

 when he observed a slave-making expedition at Blackwater in 

 Hampshire. Farren-White gives the following account from an 

 unpublished manuscript by F. Smith, in his possession. 



" It was in the summer of 1843 I discovered a colony of this 

 slave-making ant, and very closely I watched it, in the hope of 

 witnessing what others had described. Three successive years 

 passed without any satisfactory result. In the nests I found plenty 

 of slaves, or, at least, plenty of a very different species to the 

 F. sanguinea, all being black and smaller. One morning, on 

 passing the nest, swarms of ants were spread over the bank in which 

 the nest was situated. The larger ants, the 'soldiers, were very 

 active, and constantly assuming the most threatening attitudes, 

 standing erect, occasionally springing up on their hinderfeet, and 

 snapping their jaws with great ferocity. The sun burst out, and the 

 whole host rapidly retreated to their subterranean abode. Again, in 

 the evening, I visited the spot, and to my delight I found the army 

 again in battle array. Numbers of the largest ants at length 

 separated from the rest, and formed the advanced guard or van, 

 and the whole body was in motion. At a distance of about twenty 

 yards was a nest of Formica fusca. This was the object of their 

 attack. Without the slightest pause, the advanced warriors boldly 

 entered the nest, and in poured swarms after them. After a few 

 moments had elapsed numbers issued forth, each carrying their 

 slaves in their jaws. Occasionally, a number of black ants rushed 

 out of the nest and gallantly attacked their invaders, but they were 

 quickly overcome, and carried off to the nest of the victors. Fre- 

 quently, however, they were torn limb from limb, in which case 

 their mangled bodies were borne off, no doubt as food, to the nest. 

 In plundering a nest, although numbers of ants are carried off, by 

 far the greater number convey the pupae, or young brood, of the 

 black ants, and I have some suspicion that it is these which, being 

 born in the nest, become slaves from birth." 41 



In this suspicion Smith was undoubtedly correct, but part of 

 his account is contrary to the usual method of procedure, and it 

 rather looks as if he had written it from memory sometime after 

 the occurrence. Darwin was the next, and he saw what was 

 evidently the finish of a slave-making expedition. He writes 



