48 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



are accounted the discoveries of more modern writers on 

 ihis subject a . Latreille's Natural History of Ants is like- 

 wise extremely valuable, not only as giving a systematic 

 arrangement and descriptions of the species, but as con- 

 centrating the accounts of preceding authors, and add- 

 ing several interesting facts ex proprio penu. The great 

 historiographer of ants, however, is M. P. Huber ; who 



a M. P. Huber, in the account which, in imitation of De Geer, he 

 has given of the discoveries made by his predecessors in the history 

 of ants, having passed without notice, probably ignorant of the ex- 

 istence of such a writer, those of our intelligent countryman Gould, 

 I shall here give a short analysis of them; from which it will appear, 

 that he was one of their best, or rather their very best historian, till 

 M. Huber's work came out. His Account of English Ants was pub- 

 lished in 1747, long before either Linne or DeGeer had written upon 

 the subject. 



I. Species. He describes five species of English ants; viz. I. The 

 hill ant (Formica rufa, L). 2. The jet ant (F. fuliginosa, Latr.). 

 3. The red ant (Myrmica rubra, Latr. Formica, Lin.) : He observes, 

 that this species alone is armed with a sting ; whereas, the others 

 make a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid into 

 it. 4. The common yellow ant (F.flava y Latr.) : and 5. The small 

 black ant (F.fusca, L.). 



II. Egg. He observes that the eggs producing males and females 

 are laid the earliest, and are the largest : he seems, however, to 

 have confounded the black and brown eggs of Aphides with those of 

 ants. 



III. Larva. These, when first hatched, he observes, are hairy, 

 and continue in the larva state twelve months or more. He, as well 

 as De Geer, was aware that the larvae of Myrmica rubra do not, as 

 other ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa. 



IV. Pupa. He found that female ants continue in this state about 

 six weeks, and males and neuters only a month. 



V. Imago. He knew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that fe- 

 males cast their wings previous to their becoming mothers ; that, at 

 the time of their swarms, large numbers of both sexes become the 

 prey of birds and fishes : that the surviving females, sometimes in 

 numbers, go under ground, particularly in mole-hills, and lay eggs ; 

 but he had not discovered that they then act the part of neuters in 



