334 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



interesting anecdote afford ! Another experiment which he tried made the 

 contrast equally striking. He put a large portion of one of these mixed 

 colonies into a woollen bag, in the mouth of which he fixed a small tube 

 of wood, glazed at the top, which at the other end was fitted to the entrance 

 of a kind of hive. The second day the tube was crowded with negroes 

 going and returning: the indefatigable diligence and activity manifested 

 by them in transporting the young brood and their rufescent masters, 

 whose bodies were suspended upon their mandibles, was astonishing. 

 These last took no active part in the busy scene, while their slaves showed 

 the greatest anxiety about them, generally carrying them into the hive ; and 

 if they sometimes contented themselves with depositing them at the en- 

 trance of the tube, it was that they might use greater dispatch in fetching 

 the rest. The rufescent when thus set down remained for a moment 

 coiled up without motion, and then leisurely unrolling itself, looked all 

 around, as if it was quite at a loss what direction to take ; it next went 

 up to the negroes, and by the play of its antennae seemed to implore their 

 succour, till one of them attending to it conducted it into the hive. 



Beings so entirely dependent as these masters are upon their slaves, for 

 every necessary, comfort, and enjoyment of their life, can scarcely be sup- 

 posed to treat them with rigour or unkindness: so far from this, it is 

 evident from the preceding details that they rather look up to them, and 

 are in some degree under their control. 



The above observations, with respect to the indolence of our slave- 

 dealers, relate principally to the rufescent species ; for the sanguine ants are 

 not altogether so listless and helpless ; they assist their negroes in the con- 

 struction of their nests, they collect their sweet fluid from the Aphides ; 

 and one of their most usuafoccupations is to lie in wait for a small species 

 of ant, on which they feed ; and when their nest is menaced by an enemy 

 they show their value for these faithful servants by carrying them down 

 into the lowest apartments, as to a place of the greatest security. Some- 

 times even the rufescents rouse themselves from the torpor that usually 

 benumbs them. In one instance, when they wished to emigrate from their 

 own to a deserted nest, they reversed what usually takes place on such 

 occasions, and carried all their negroes themselves to the spot they had 

 chosen. At the first foundation also of their societies by impregnated 

 females, there is good reason for thinking, that, like those of other species, 

 they take upon themselves the whole charge of the nascent colony. I 

 must not here omit a most extraordinary anecdote related by M. Huber. 

 He put into one of his artificial formicaries pupae of both species of the 

 slave-collecting ants, which, under the care of some negroes introduced 

 with them, arrived at their imago state, and lived together under the same 

 roof in the most perfect amity. 



These facts show what effects education will produce even upon insects; 

 that it will impart to them a new bias, and modify in some respects their 

 usual instincts, rendering them familiar with objects which, had they been 

 educated at home, they would have feared, and causing them to love those 

 whom in that case they would have abhorred. It occasions, however, 

 no further change in their character, since the master and slave, brought 

 up with the same care and under the same superintendence, are associated 

 in the mixed formicary under laws entirely opposite. 1 



1 See Tluber, chap, vii xi. Mixed societies, similar to the above described, 

 have been observed amongst exotic ants by M. Lund, who mentions a species of 



