204 SPECIAL INSTINCTS. [CHAP. VIIL 



the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, after all, they had been 

 victorious in their late combat. 



At the same time I laid on the same place a small parcel of the 

 pupae of another species, F. flava, with a few of these little yellow 

 ants still clinging to the fragments of their nest. This species is 

 sometimes, though rarely, made into slaves, as has been described 

 by Mr. Smith. Although so small a species, it is very courageous, 

 and I have seen it ferociously attack other ants. In one instance 

 I found to my surprise an independent community of F. flava 

 under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F. sanguinea ; 

 and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants 

 attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage. Now I was 

 curious to ascertain whether F. sanguinea could distinguish the 

 pupae of F. fusca, which they habitually make into slaves, from 

 those of the little and furious F. flava, which they rarely capture, 

 and it was evident that they did at once distinguish them : for we 

 have seen that they eagerly and instantly seized the pupee of F. 

 fusca, whereas they were much terrified when they came across 

 the pupae, or even the earth from the nest, of F. flava, and quickly 

 ran away ; but in about a quarter of an hour, shortly after all the 

 little yellow ants had crawled away, they took heart and carried 

 off the pupae. 



One evening I visited another community of F. sanguinea, and 

 found a number of these ants returning home and entering their 

 nests, carrying the dead bodies of F. fusca (showing that it was 

 not a migration) and numerous pupae. I traced a long file of ants 

 burthened with booty, for about forty yards back, to a very thick 

 clump of heath, whence I saw the last individual of F. sanguinea 

 emerge, carrying a pupa ; but I was not able to find the desolated 

 nest in the thick heath. The nest, however, must have been close 

 at hand, for two or three individuals of F. fusca were rushing 

 about in the greatest agitation, and one was perched motionless 

 with its own pupa in its mouth on the top of a spray of heath, an 

 image of despair over its ravaged home. 



Such are the facts, though they did not need confirmation by 

 me, in regard to the wonderful instinct of making slaves. Let it 

 be observed what a contrast the instinctive habits of F. sanguinea 

 present with those of the continental F. rufescens. The latter does 

 not build its own nest, does not determine its own migrations, does 

 not collect food for itself or its young, and cannot even feed itself : 

 it is absolutely dependent on its numerous slaves. Formica san- 

 guinea, on the other hand, possesses much fewer slaves, and in th& 

 early part of the summer extremely few : the masters determine 

 when and where a new nest shall be formed, and wnen they 

 migrate, the masters carry the slaves. Both in Switzerland and 

 England the slaves seem to have the exclusive care of the larvae, 



