60 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
regular ranks, nor on the return did they 
carry any of the booty, but marched along at 
the side, and at tolerably regular intervals, 
“like subaltern officers in a marching regi- 
ment.’ He is disposed, however, to ascribe 
to them a much humbler function, namely, 
to serve merely “as indigestible morsels to 
the ant thrushes.” This, I confess, seems to 
me improbable. 
Solomon was, so far as we yet know, quite 
correct in describing Ants as having “ neither 
guide, overseer, nor ruler.” The so-called 
Queens are really Mothers. Nevertheless it 
is true, and it is curious, that the working 
Ants and Bees always turn their heads 
towards the Queen. It seems as if the sight 
of her gave them pleasure. On one occasion, 
while moving some Ants from one nest into 
another for exhibition at the Royal Institution, 
I unfortunately crushed the Queen and killed 
her. The others, however, did not desert her, 
or draw her out as they do dead workers, but 
on the contrary carried her into the new nest, 
and subsequently into a larger one with which 
I supplied them, congregating round her for 
a 
