WARS OP ANTS. 335 



WARS OF ANTS. 



THE wars of ants have furnished a theme not pe- 

 culiar to modern times, though it belongs to living 

 naturalists to have traced many interesting circum- 

 stances respecting these, which could scarcely have 

 been dreamed of, and would certainly not have been 

 credited but upon the very high authority of the wit- 

 nesses. One of the older records of an ant-battle is 

 given by ^Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., 

 which was contested with obstinacy by a great 

 and a small species, on the trunk of a pear-tree. 

 " This action," he states, *' was fought in the pon- 

 tificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of 

 Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who re- 

 lated the whole history of the battle with the greatest 

 fidelity." Another engagement of the same de- 

 scription is recorded by Olaus Magnus as having 

 happened previous to the expulsion of Christiern 

 the Second from Sweden ; and the smallest species, 

 having been victorious, are said to have buried 

 the bodies of their own soldiers that had been killed, 

 while they left those of their adversaries a prey 

 to the birds *. Our readers, however, we are per- 

 suaded, will listen with more interest to some of 

 the minutely circumstantial narratives of the chief 

 historian of ants, the younger Huber. " If," says 

 he, " we are desirous of beholding regular armies 

 wage war in all its forms, we must visit the forests 

 in which the wood-ant (Formica rufa) establishes 

 its dominion over every insect within the neigh- 

 bourhood of the colony. We shall there see popu- 

 lous and rival cities, and regular military roads 

 diverging from the ant-hill like so many rays from 

 a centre, frequented by an immense number of com- 

 batants of the same species, for they are naturally 

 * Mouffet, Theatrum Insect. 242. 



