330 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



directing their course to the quarter from which the scouts came. They 

 have various preparatory signals, such as pushing each other with the 

 mandibles or forehead, or playing with the antennae ; the object of which 

 is probably to excite their martial ardour, to give the word for marching, 

 or to indicate the route they are to take. The advanced guard usualfy 

 consists of eight or ten ants, but no sooner do these get beyond the rest 

 than they move back, wheeling round in a semicircle, and mixing with the 

 main body, while others succeed to their station. They have " no captain, 

 overseer, or ruler," as Solomon observes, their army being composed 

 entirely of neuters, without a single female : thus all in their turns take 

 their place at the head, and then, retreating towards the rear, make room 

 for others. This is the usual order of their march ; and the object of it 

 may be to communicate intelligence more readily from one part of the 

 column to another. 



When winding through the grass of a meadow they have proceeded to 

 thirty feet or more from their own habitation, they disperse: and, like 

 dogs with their noses, explore the ground with their antennae to detect the 

 traces of the game they are pursuing. The negro formicary, the object of 

 their search, is soon discovered; some of the inhabitants are usually 

 keeping guard at the avenues, which dart upon the foremost of their 

 assailants with inconceivable fury. The alarm increasing, crowds of its 

 swarthy inhabitants rush forth from every apartment : but their valour is 

 exerted in vain ; for the besiegers, precipitating themselves upon them, by 

 the ardour of their attack compel them to retreat within, and seek shelter 

 in the lowest story ; great numbers entering with them at the gates, while 

 others with their mandibles make a breach in the walls, through which the 

 victorious army marches into the besieged city. In a few minutes, by the 

 same passages, they as hastily evacuate it, each carrying off in its mouth a 

 larva or pupa which it has seized in spite of its unhappy guardians. On 

 their return home with their spoil, they pursue exactly the route by which 

 they went to the attack. Their success on these expeditions is rather the 

 result of their impetuosity, by which they damp the courage of the negroes, 

 than of their superior strength, though they are a larger animal ; for some- 

 times a very small body of them, not more than 150, has been known to 

 succeed in their attack and to carry off their booty. l 



1 Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have met with fresh 

 confirmation of the extraordinary history here related. Having been induced to 

 visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so justly celebrated as one of the first 

 entomologists of the age, and to whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly 

 attentions which he paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he 

 assured me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. He has 

 also said the same in his Considerations nouvelles et generates sur les Insects vivant en 

 Societe. (Mem. du Mus. iii. 407.) At the same time he informed me that there was 

 a nest of the rufescent ants in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards 

 was so good as to accompany me. We went on the 25th of June, 1817. The day 

 was excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we began our 

 search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion. In a minute or two, 

 however, my friend directed my attention to one individual two or three more 

 next appeared and soon a numerous army was to be seen winding through the 

 long grass of a low ridge in which was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the 

 wood from Paris, on the right hand and near the road, is a bare place, paled in for 

 the Sunday amusement of the lower orders to this the ants directed their march, 

 and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed it rapidly and with 

 great apparent eagerness ; all the while exploring the ground with their antennae, 



