300 IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



Is the monarch then chosen by his peers when they first leave the egg and 

 emerge from their subterranean caverns ? or have larva, pupa, ancTimago 

 each their separate king? The account given us in Scripture is certainly 

 much the most probable, that the locusts have no king, though they ob- 

 serve as much order and regularity in their movements as if they were 

 under military discipline, and had a ruler over them. 1 Some species of 

 ants, as we learn from the admirable history of them by M. P. Huber, 

 though they go forth by common consent upon their military expeditions, 

 yet the order of their columns keeps perpetually changing ; so that those 

 who lead the van at the first setting out soon fall into the rear, and 

 others take their place : their successors do the same ; and such is the 

 constant order of their march. It seems probable, as these columns are 

 extended to a considerable length, that the object of this successive change 

 of leaders is to convey constant intelligence to those in the rear of what 

 is going forward in the van. Whether anything like this takes place for 

 the regulation of their motions in the innumerable locust-armies, which are 

 sometimes co-extensive with vast kingdoms ; or whether their instinct 

 simply directs them to follow the first that moves or flies, and to keep 

 their measured distance, so that, as the prophet speaks, " one does not 

 thrust another, and they walk every one in his path 2 ," must be left to fu- 

 ture naturalists to ascertain. And I think that you' will join with me in 

 the wish that travellers, who have a taste for Natural History, and some 

 knowledge of insects, would devote a share of attention to the proceedings 

 of these celebrated animals, so that we might have facts instead of fables. 



The last order of imperfect associations approaches nearer to perfect 

 societies, and is that of those insects which the social principle urges to 

 unite in some common work for the benefit of the community. 



Amongst the Coleoptera, Ateuchus pilularius, a beetle before mentioned, 

 acts under the influence of this principle. " I have attentively admired 

 their industry and mutual assisting of each other," says Catesby, " in 

 rolling those globular balls from the place where they made them to that 

 of their interment, which is usually the distance of some yards, more or 

 less. This they perform breech foremost, by raising their hind parts, 

 forcing along the ball with their hind feet. Two or three of them are 

 sometimes engaged in trundling one ball, which, from meeting with im- 

 pediments from the unevenness of the ground, is sometimes deserted by 

 them : it is, however, attempted by others with success, unless it happens 

 to roll into some deep hollow chink, where they are constrained to leave 

 it ; but they continue their work by rolling off the next ball that comes in 

 their way. None of them seem to know their own balls, but an equal 

 care for the whole appears to affect all the community ." & 



Many larvae also of Lepidoptera associate with this view, some of 

 which are social only during part of their existence, and others during 

 the whole of it. The first of these continue together, while their united 

 labours are beneficial to them ; but when they reach a certain period of 

 their life, they disperse and become solitary* Of this kind are the cater- 

 pillars of a little butterfly (Melitcea Cinxia) which devour the narrow- 

 leaved plantain. The families of these, usually amounting to about a 

 hundred, unite to form a pyramidal silken tent, containing several apart- 



1 Proverbs, xxx. 27. 2 Joel, ii. 8. 



5 Catesbj^'s Carolina, ii. 111. 



