CHAP. X. SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 2^5 



are mainly, and almost exclusively, indebted to Messrs. 

 Kirby and Spence, who have devoted a large portion of 

 the second volume of their admirable work to this sub- 

 ject ; and who have collected and digested, with great 

 industry and skill, everything that has been written on 

 this matter. Whatever facts, in the following pages, are 

 not stated as the result of personal observation, must be 

 considered as taken from the Introduction to Entomo- 

 logy, or from other original sources, equally authentic. 



(303.) In regard to social insects, generally, we 

 cannot but observe, that the nature of their food, and 

 habits, correspond with their peaceful and orderly dis- 

 position. With the exception of the wasps, which, 

 as types of the Carnivora, in the order Hymenoptera, 

 derive part of their sustenance from the bodies of smaller 

 insects, the whole of these tribes live upon vegetables. 

 The bees feast upon the nectar of living flowers ; the 

 Termites, or white ants, upon the fibres of decayed or 

 decaying wood ; and the common ants chiefly upou 

 seeds and grain. Most of the latter, however, in tropical 

 countries, appear omnivorous, devouring everything 

 that comes in their way; at least, we had painful ex- 

 perience of this in South America, where many boxes 

 of fine insects, incautiously left open for the purpose of 

 drying, were, in one night, totally destroyed by these 

 creatures ; the same misfortune happened to the cele- 

 brated Smeathman, whose name we shall have frequent 

 occasion to mention, while prosecuting his researches 

 on the western coast of Africa; while some species of 

 Termes appear equally capable of feeding both upon 

 animal and vegetable matter. 



(304.) We shall contemplate the different societies 

 of insects under the following heads : 1. Those which, 

 at first, erect a common habitation for themselves, but 

 separate and disperse in the subsequent periods of their 

 existence. 2. Those in which the work is performed 

 by larvae. 3. Those whose workers are neuters. To 

 the first of these belong most of the social Lepidoptera ; 

 the second comprises the white ants ; and the third in- 

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