328 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 6 



That if used alone, they may either be drilled 

 with the seed, or sown broad-cast. 



That bones which have, undergone the process 

 of fermentation are deciiledly superior (in their 

 immediate eH'ects) to those which have not done 

 so. 



That the quantity should be about 20 bushels of 

 dust, or 40 buyhels of large, increasing the quan- 

 tity if the land be impoverished : and also, ac- 

 cording to our opinion, il' the bones have been al- 

 ready nianufvtured. 



That upon clays and heavy loams, it does not 

 yet a|)pear that bones will answer. 



On this latter observation, however, a firmer 

 near Nantwich, Cheshire, remarks, that he "oc- 

 cupies a firm in the township of Pickmore, the 

 soil of which is a clay loam, scarcely twelve inches 

 deep, the sub-soil a grey sand, mixed witli coarse 

 clay — which the farmers call raminel — on a bed of 

 good clay marl. Two years ago, ho covered the 

 field With bone-manure ; previous to which the 

 grass was so sour, as not to be worth ten shillings 

 per acre ;. but is now full of most excellent her- 

 bage, consisting of white clover and tretoil ;" to 

 which he adds, that "in another of his fields, with 

 a clay soil, a sniall portion of it Avas manured, 

 thirty-two years ago, by a former tenant, with 

 bones ; and that, although it has been twenty 

 years in tillage, yet that part still shows a superi- 

 oritv over the rest."* 



From the History of Insects in the Family Library. 

 NATURAL HISTORY OF ANTS. 



Their Industry — AfFection for their Youno; — Courage 

 — Their Anger — Unite in Myriads for War and Ex- 

 termination — The Fallow Ants— The Sanguine Ants 

 — The Legionary Ants — Attack other Ants, and ra- 

 duce them to Slavery. 



The history of the insects now to be described, 

 presents examples of an industry which has be- 

 come proverbial, and traits of aflection and ftjeling 

 Avhich would do honor to our own species. Love 

 and courage, patience and perseverance, almost 

 all the higher virtues of human nature, when ar- 

 rived at the higiiest pitch of earthly perfection, 

 seem to be the ordinary springs of action in the 

 ant. 



Of ants, as of other social insects, the largest 

 portion of the community consists of neuters; be- 

 ings possessing the most exquisite sentiments of 

 maternity unalloyed by passion ; so that from their 

 birth to their death they live, think, and act only 

 for the offspring of another. 



The instincts ol' this insect are, indisputably, 

 more extraordinary than those of any other in the 

 whole range of animated nature. The ancients 

 magnified them into iiibalons miracles. Pliny talks 

 of an Indian ant as big as an Egyptian wolf, of the 

 color ot a cat, which entered the bowels of the 

 earth in search of gold, of which I hey are said to 

 have been plundered during the winter by the hu- 

 man inhabitants of those regions. 



But exaggeration and credulity apart, the real 

 habits and proceedings of these insects are so ex- 

 traordinary, that they would stagger our belief, 

 if not confirmed by such observers as Ilubcr and 

 Latreille. 



* New Fanner's Magazine, No. 82, December, 

 183y. 



Their nests contain tiiree kinds of individuals — 

 males; females, which have wings; and neuters, 

 which are destitute of these appendages. 



"In the warm days which occur fi'om the end of 

 July to the beginning ot September, and some- 

 times later, the inhabitants of the various species 

 of ants may be seen swarming with winged in- 

 sects; these are the males and liimales, preparing 

 to quit -lor ever the scenes of their nativity and 

 education. Every thing is in motion ; and the 

 silver wings, contrasted with the jet bodies which 

 compose the animated mass, add a degree of splen- 

 dor to the interesting scene. The bustle increas- 

 es, till at length the males rise, as it were, by 

 general impulse into the air, and the females ac- 

 company them : the whole swarm alternately rises 

 and fdls with a slow movement, to the lieight of 

 about ten feet ; the males flying obliquely with a 

 rapid zigzag motion, and the females, though fol- 

 lowing the general movement of the column, ap- 

 pearing sus|)enJed in the air, like balloons ; and 

 having their heads turned towards the wind." 



Sometimes the swarm of a whole district unite 

 their infinite myriads, and seen at a distance, says 

 M. Gliditsch,* produce an efiect very much re- 

 sembling an aurora borealis, when from the border 

 of the cloud appear several columns of flame and 

 vapor, attended with a variety of luminous rays 

 and lines resembling forked lightning confined in 

 its brilliancy. The noise emitted by the countless 

 myriads of these creatures is not so loud as the 

 hum ol a smgle wasp, and the slightest breath 

 scatters them abroad. In the midst of these num- 

 berless males the females become fecundated, and 

 the greater portion of the former sex immediately 

 perishing, become the food of birds or of fish. So 

 numerous are they, that Dr. Bromley says they 

 formed a column on the waterwhere they had liil- 

 len, five or six miles long, eight or ten feet broad, 

 and six inches deep. 



The lemales which escape are destined to Ibund 

 new colonics, and at first to do all the work of 

 neuters; in this particular resembling the mother 

 wasp : but prior to their constructing a new habi- 

 tation, they make themselves voluntary prisoners, 

 by throwing ofi' their wings. So extraordinary a 

 dismemberment requires to be supported by the 

 testimony of an eye-witness. 



Accordingly, Iluber, who made the experiment, 

 states, "that liaving induced an ant to mount a 

 straw, he placed it on a table sprinkled with a lit- 



*A species of ant, called by Linnapus the formica 

 sacchicora, appeared in such torrents in the island ol" 

 Granada, and destroyed the sugar-canes so completely 

 by undermining their roots, that a reward of i; 20, 000 

 was offered to any one who should discover an elfuctu- 

 al mode of destroying them. 



They descended from the hills in a flood, and filled 

 not only the plantation, but the roads for miles. Do- 

 mestic quadrupeds perished; and rats, mice, and rep- 

 tiles, were devoured by them, and even birds were so 

 harrassed when they alighted as quickly to die. No- 

 thing opposed their march : they blindly rushed into 

 the streams and were di-owned in such countless myri- 

 ads, that the aggregation of their tiny carcasses dam- 

 med up the waters, and formed a bridge ibr others to 

 pass over. The large fii-es lighted in their paths were 

 speedily extinguished by the rush of their masses, and 

 had not Providence swejtt them away in the torrents of 

 a terrible hurricane in 1780, every thing must have fal- 

 len before them. — Inlroduclion to Etjmolog'j, vol. i. 

 p. 85. 



