GOVERNMENT OF ANTS, 305 



says he, " they see any one idle, they not only 

 drive him as spurious, without 'food, from the rest, 

 but likewise a circle of all ranks being assembled, 

 cut off his head before the gates, that he may be a 

 warning to their children not to give themselves up 

 for the future to idleness and effeminacy *." That 

 the writer may have witnessed such an occurrence is 

 exceedingly probable, though the inference he draws 

 is evidently too refined. Kirby, on quoting these 

 passages, says, " I once saw one of these ants 

 (Myrmica rubra) dragged out of the nest by ano- 

 ther, without its head ; it was still alive and could 

 crawl about. A lively imagination might have fancied 

 that this poor ant was a criminal condemned by a 

 court of justice to suffer the extreme sentence of the 

 law. It was more probably, however, a champion 

 that had been decapitated in unequal combat, unless 

 we admit Gould's idea, and suppose it to have suf- 

 fered because it was an unprofitable member of the 

 community. At another time I found three indivi- 

 duals that were fighting with great fury, chained to- 

 gether by their mandibles ; one of these had lost two 

 legs of one side, yet it appeared to walk well, and 

 was as eager to attack and seize its opponents as if 

 it was unhurt. This did not look like languor or 

 sickness j\" 



With reference to the notion of the feeble or the 

 sick being persecuted or expelled, we may mention that 

 it is not uncommon in artificial formicaries to see indi- 

 viduals become ill and die, either from confinement, 

 from surfeit, or from improper food ; but in two colo- 

 nies of the red ants now under our eye, where several 

 individuals are obviously in a dying state, the active 

 members of the community seem to take no more 

 notice of them than if they were a bit of earth, and 



* Mouffet, Theatrum Insect. 241. 

 f Intr. ii.71. 



2 D3 



