INSECTS. 241 



themselves again in marching order, return with their captives to 

 their own capital. It is upon the species named F. fusca that 

 they chiefly exercise their power. M. Huber, led by a very 

 striking analogy, compares the captured ants, retained as work- 

 ers by these warlike hordes, to the Helots of the Greeks and 

 Romans, or to the negro slaves of modern Europeans. The F. 

 sanguined affords an instance where all the workers are of similar 

 forms, and engage in the same labours ; and, though they do not 

 seem to have a kind of standing army among them, like the 

 Amazonian ants, follow the same warlike propensities. M. 

 Huber has detailed the tactics of these small animals from ob- 

 servations made in the cantons of Switzerland, where the spe- 

 cies is common ; and demonstrated that the scourges of war and 

 slavery are not confined alone to human beings. 



The bee, however, presents instinctive faculties of a more ami- 

 able nature. It has no carnivorous propensities ; and while some 

 of the other insects which live in societies subsist by rapine and 

 destruction, this interesting animal pursues its peaceful labours, 

 collecting honey and wax from sources inaccessible to human 

 means, and presents a model of industry and foresight which has 

 often been held up by moralists as instructive to man. 



The migrations of Insects, or rather their appearance in cer- 

 tain countries at certain periods, laying waste whole territories 

 by destroying the crops and eating up every green leaf and blade 

 of grass, do not seem referable to the same causes as the migra- 

 tions of Birds and Fishes. The appearance of Locusts (Gryl- 

 lus migratorius, Lin.), in Barbary, Egypt, and Tartary, and 

 their occasional irruptions into the South of Europe, are rather 

 to be attributed to the excessive multiplication of the species 

 from causes favourable to reproduction than to any periodical 

 instinctive impulse ; and their occasional dispersion in count- 

 less numbers over the neighbouring countries may originate in 

 the necessity of finding a supply of food. The direction of their 

 flight in these migrations is generally regulated by the blowing 

 of the wind. In places visited with this scourge, the inhabi- 

 tants eat these insects, either using them when recent, or dry- 

 ing and grinding them as a substitute for bread. Since the 

 year 1749, though certain parts of Russia, Poland, and Hun- 

 gary are occasionally visited by flights of locusts, Europe has 

 been free from any very alarming influx of these animals. In 



VOL. II. Q 



