PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 75 



till it has undergone the ordeal of a most thorough inves- 

 tigation. Unfortunately in this country we have not the 

 means of satisfying ourselves by ocular demonstration, 

 since none of the slave-dealing ants appear to be natives 

 of Britain. We must be satisfied, therefore, with weigh- 

 ing the evidence of others. Hear what M. P. Huber, the 

 discoverer of this almost incredible deviation of nature 

 from her general laws, has advanced to convince the world 

 of the accuracy of his statement, and you will, I am sure, 

 allow that he has thrown over his history a colouring of 

 verisimilitude, and that his appeal to testimony is in a 

 very high degree satisfactory. 



" My readers," says he, "will perhaps be temptecLto 

 believe that I have suffered myself to be carried away 

 by the love of the marvellous, and that, in order to impart 

 greater interest to my narration, I have given way to an 

 inclination to embellish the facts that I have observed. 

 But the more the wonders of nature have attractions for 

 me, the less do I feel inclined to alter them by a mixture 

 of the reveries of imagination. I have sought to divest 

 myself of every illusion and prejudice, of the ambition of 

 saying new things, of the prepossessions often attached to 

 perceptions too rapid, the love of system, and the like. 

 And I have endeavoured to keep myself, if I may so say, 

 in a disposition of mind perfectly neuter, and ready to 

 admit all facts, of whatever nature they might be, that 

 patient observation should confirm. Amongst the persons 

 whom I have taken as witnesses to the discovery of mixed 

 ant-hills, I can cite a distinguished philosopher (Prof. 

 Jurine), who was desirous of verifying their existence by 

 examining himself the two species united a ." 



a Huber, 287. Jurine, Hymenopteres, 273. 



