IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 17 



think without sufficient reason, by several travellers. 

 Thus Benjamin Bullivant, in his observations on the 

 Natural History of New England % says that " the lo- 

 custs have a kind of regimental discipline, and as it were 

 some commanders, which show greater and more splen- 

 did wings than the common ones, and arise first when 

 pursued by the fowls or the feet of the traveller, as I have 

 often seriously remarked." And in like terms Jackson 

 observes, that " they have a government amongst them- 

 selves similar to that of the bees and ants ; and when 

 the (Sultan Jerraad] king of the locusts rises, the whole 

 body follow him, not one solitary straggler being left 

 behind 5 ." But that locusts have leaders, like the bees or 

 ants, distinguished from the rest by the size and splen- 

 dour of their wings, is a circumstance that has not yet 

 been established by any satisfactory evidence ; indeed, 

 very strong reasons may be urged against it. The nations 

 of bees and ants, it must be observed, are housed to- 

 gether in one nest or hive, the whole population of 

 which is originally derived from one common mother, 

 and the leaders of the swarms in each are the females. 

 But the armies of locusts, though they herd together, 

 travel together, and feed together, consist of an infinity 

 of separate families, all derived from different mothers, 

 who have laid their eggs in separate cells or houses in 

 the earth ; so that there is little or no analogy between 

 the societies of locusts and those of bees and ants ; and 

 this pretended sultan is something quite different from 

 the queen -bee or the female ants. It follows, therefore, 

 that as the locusts have no common mother, like the 

 bees, to lead their swarms, there is no one that nature, 



a In Philos. Trans, for 1698. b Jackson's Marocco, 51. 



VOL. II. C 



