HYMENOPTEKA. 389 



the members of the community, allow them to be prepared for 

 anything that may happen, and to supply all their necessities. 



Nothing is more amusing than to observe the shifts ants are 

 put to in transporting objects of great size. They stumble,, 

 they tumble head over heels, they roll down precipices ; but, in 

 spite of all accidents, return to their task, and always accom- 

 plish it. 



The tranquil inhabitants of these subterranean republics are 

 bound together by a mutual affection in a devoted fraternity, 

 which makes them ever ready to assist each other. They all help 

 one another as much as they can. If an ant is tired, a comrade 

 carries it on its back. Those which are so absorbed with their 

 work that they have no time to think of their food, are fed by 

 their companions. When an ant is wounded, the first one who 

 meets it renders it assistance, and carries it home. Latreille 

 having torn the antennae from an ant, saw another approach the 

 poor wounded one, and pour, with its tongue, a few drops of a 

 yellow liquid on the bleeding wound. 



Huber the younger one day took an ants' nest to populate one 

 of those glass contrivances which he used for making his obser- 

 vations, and which consisted of a sort of glass bell placed over the 

 nest. Our naturalist set at liberty one part of the ants, which fixed 

 themselves at the foot of a neighbouring chestnut-tree. The 

 rest were kept during four months in the apparatus, and at 

 the end of this time, Huber moved the whole into the garden, 

 and a few ants managed to escape. Having met their old com- 

 panions, who still lived at the foot of the chestnut-tree, they 

 recognised them. They were seen, in fact, all of them to gesti- 

 culate, to caress each other mutually with their antennae, to take 

 each other by the mandibles, as if to embrace in token of joy, 

 and they then re-entered together the nest at the foot of the chest- 

 nut-tree. Very soon they came in a crowd to look for the other 

 ants under the bell, and in a few hours our observer's appa- 

 ratus was completely evacuated by its prisoners. "When an ant 

 has discovered any rich prey, far from enjoying it alone, like a 

 gourmand, it invites all its companions to the feast. Community 

 of goods and interests exists amongst all the members of this, 

 model society. It is the practical realisation of the dream formed 



