PAIRING OF ANTS. 247 



as far as they could, accompanying them.*' " I took 

 eight pairs of these and placed them in a box, to ob- 

 serve them on my return ; but a violent rain, which 

 came on at this moment, offered me a sight as singular 

 as unexpected. As soon as the shower had passed, 

 I saw the earth strewed with females without wings ; 

 they were, most likely, the identical females I had 

 seen traversing the air. They were of the same spe- 

 cies (Formica brunnea) as the first. 



"On my return home, I placed my eight prisoners, 

 with some moistened earth, in a garden vase, covered 

 with a glass receiver. It was nine o'clock in the 

 evening ; at ten, the females had lost their wings, 

 which I observed scattered here and there, and were 

 hiding themselves under the earth. On the following 

 day I procured three other females, and this time I 

 observed them with the greatest attention from the 

 moment of pairing until nine in the evening, a 

 period of five hours ; but during this time nothing 

 was done to denote the approaching loss of their 

 wings, which remained still firmly affixed. They ap- 

 peared to be in excellent condition ; and when I saw 

 them pass their feet across their mouths, then over 

 the antenna?, and again brush them upon one an- 

 other, I expected to see their wings fall off, and could 

 not conceive what retarded this, since the others had 

 lost them so readily. I had no idea that the mere 

 difference of the bottom of a sand-box, where there 

 was no earth, would have had any influence in pre- 

 venting this ; but, in order that it might not affect 

 them, I took some earth, strewed it lightly over the 

 table, and covered it with a bell-glass. I still pos- 

 sessed three fecundated winged females, one of 

 which I introduced under the recipient. I induced 

 her to go there freely, by presenting her a fragment 

 of straw, on which I conveyed her to her new habita- 

 tion, without touching her. Scarcely did she perceive 



