438 The Natural History of Selborne 



ANTS. 



AUGUST 23. Every ant-hill about this time is in a strange hurry 

 and confusion; and all the winged ants, agitated by some violent 

 impulse, are leaving their homes, and, bent on emigration, swarm 

 by myriads in the air, to the great emolument of the hirundines, 

 which fare luxuriously. Those that escape the swallows return no 

 more to their nests, but looking out for fresh' settlements, Jay 

 a foundation for future colonies. All the females at this time 

 are pregnant : the males that escape being eaten, wander away 

 and die. 



October 2. Flying-ants, male and female, usually swarm and 

 migrate on hot sunny days in August and September ; but this day 

 a vast emigration took place in my garden, and myriads came forth, 

 in appearance from the drain which goes under the fruit-wall, filling 

 the air and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their numbers. 

 The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is probably owing 

 to the backward, wet season. The day following, not one flying ant 

 was to be seen. 



Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies, which they 

 have caught, and the aurelias of smaller ants, which they seize by 

 violence. WH ITE. 



In my "Naturalist's Calendar " for the year 1777, on September 

 6th, I find the following note to the article Flying Ants: 



I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the top of 

 some tall elm-trees (close by my house) ; some were continually 

 dropping to the ground as if from the trees, and others rising up 

 from the ground ; many of them were joined together in copulation ; 

 and I imagine their life is but short, for as soon as produced from 

 the egg by the heat of the sun, they propagate their species, and 

 soon after perish. They were black, somewhat like the small black 

 ant, and had four wings. I saw also, at another place, a large sort 

 which were yellowish. On the eighth of September, 1785, I again 



