PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 339 



singular and amusing scene is then exhibited of the little people thus em- 

 ployed ! When an emigration of a rufescent colony is going forward, the 

 negroes are seen carrying their masters ; and the contrast of the red with 

 the black renders it peculiarly striking. The little turf-ants (Myrmica? 

 ccespitum) upon these occasions carry their recruits uncoiled, with their 

 head downwards and their body in the air. 



This extraordinary scene continues several days ; but when all the neu- 

 ters are acquainted with the road to the new city, the recruiting ceases. 

 As soon as a sufficient number of apartments to contain them are prepared, 

 the young brood, with the males and females, are conveyed thither, and the 

 whole business is concluded. When the spot thus selected for their re- 

 sidence is at a considerable distance from the old nest, the ants construct 

 some intermediate receptacles, resembling small ant-hills, consisting of a 

 cavity filled with fragments of straw and other materials, in which they 

 form several cells ; and here at first they deposit their recruits, males, 

 females, and brood, which they afterwards conduct to the final settlement. 

 These intermediate stations sometimes become permanent nests, which, 

 however, maintain a connection with the capital city. 1 



While the recruiting is proceeding it appears to occasion no sensation 

 in the original nest ; all goes on in it as usual, and the ants that are not 

 yet recruited pursue their ordinary occupations : whence it is evident that 

 the change of station is not an enterprise undertaken by the whole com- 

 munity. Sometimes many neuters set about this business at the same 

 time, which gives a short existence (for in the end they all re-unite into 

 one) to many separate formicaries. If the ants dislike their new city, 

 they quit it for a third, and even for a fourth : and what is remarkable, 

 they will sometimes return to their original one before they are entirely 

 settled in the new station ; when the recruiting goes in opposite directions, 

 and the pairs pass each other on the road. You may stop the emigration 

 for the present, if you can arrest the first recruiter, and take away his 

 recruit. 2 



These European emigrations, however, are somewhat insignificant when 

 compared with thosewhich the neuters of some of the tropical species under- 

 take, the extent of which would be incredible if not so well authenticated. 

 M. Lund states that he once followed one of these vast hosts for five 

 days; and M. Lacordaire informs us that when in Cayenne he saw a mi- 

 gratory army of this description pass his residence which was about a 

 hundred paces broad, and which occupied more than a day and a half in 

 passing, though the ants marched rapidly and made no halt. It is to a 

 species of the ants making these migrations, that Madame Merian gave the 

 name of Ants of Visitation, before alluded to, as so useful by entering all 

 the houses on their march, and clearing them of all noxious insects or other 

 animals. M. Lacordaire, however, denies that any such object actuates 

 these migrating ants, which he says often pass houses without entering 

 them ; and that when they do, it is for want of food on their route ; though, 

 he admits that in this case they leave no living animal in the houses which 



1 Walking one day early in July in a spot where I used to notice a single nest of 

 Formica rufa, I observed that a new colony had been formed of considerable magni- 

 tude ; and 'between it and the original nest were six or seven smaller settlements. 



2 See Huber, chap. iv. 3. 



z 2 



