292 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES, 



aphides which fell in these parts. They who were walking the 

 streets at that time found themselves covered with these insects, 

 which settled also on the trees and gardens, and blackened all 

 the vegetables where they alighted. These armies, no doubt, ' 

 were then in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters, 

 and might perhaps come from the great hop plantations of Kent 

 or Sussex, the wind being that day at North. They were ob- 

 served at the same time at Farnham, and all along the vale to 

 Alton. 



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 emigra- 

 tion, 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, lay 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 aureliae of smaller ants, which they 

 seize by violence.* 



* In my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1777i 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 8th of 

 September, 1785, I again observed the same circumstance of a vast number of these insects flying 

 near the tops of the elms and dropping to the ground. 



On the 2d of March, 1/77, I saw great numbers of ants come out of the ground. MARKWICK. 



