CHAP. X. LOVES' OF THE ANTS AND APHIDES. 335 



shaping their course in a different direction. I handled 

 several, but they neither stung nor bit my ringers." 



(336.) On attentively considering the above facts, 

 there cannot, we think, be any doubt that the invading 

 ants first mentioned were of the slave-making race, 

 who had been completely beaten in their assault, not 

 having captured a single pupa, although their line of 

 march was strewed with their dead and wounded com- 

 rades. But then comes a very interesting question: 

 for what purpose were they conveying away, as if in 

 triumph, the uninjured prisoners they had taken, all of 

 which were of a larger size than the generality of those 

 who had repulsed them from the nest ? This mode of 

 warfare seems to be unknown among the European races, 

 and indicates some peculiarity of economy which can- 

 not, at present, be explained. The second column of 

 the same species may possibly have been a detachment 

 from the same community ; or what is more pro- 

 bable an army from a different nest, returning from 

 a successful expedition, and loaded with the infant pro- 

 geny of the nest they had pillaged, and which they were 

 conveying to their own. Not being then acquainted 

 with the slave ants, it was natural for us to conclude, at 

 the time, that these pupae rightly belonged to those who 

 were conveying them ; and whom we supposed were 

 their parents. The passages to which these remarks al- 

 lude, in the foregoing account, are printed in Italics. 

 We regret that no opportunity subsequently occurred 

 for prosecuting our observations on these and innume- 

 rable other ants, which swarm in every part of the soil, 

 and which would, of themselves, alone, require the un- 

 divided attention of any naturalist. We must now 

 return to the formicaries of Europe, and touch upon 

 another extraordinary part of their history. 



(337.) The loves of the ants and the Aphides is not 

 a mere poetic illusion, but is founded on the absolute 

 fact of the greatest intimacy and friendship existing 

 between these two families. The reader need hardly 

 be informed that the Aphides or honey-flies, as we 



