March 1, 1892.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



45 



would probably be quickly attended with a fatal result. 

 The food is elaborated by the nurses themselves in their 

 o-n-n stomachs, and is supplied to the gaping mouths of 

 the larv;i; thi'ough their own mouths. Now as the eggs 

 are not all laid at one time, there are frequent hatchings 

 going on during the summer months, and in the same 

 nest there will be grubs of different ages ; these will of 

 course require differing quantities of food, and possibly 

 even food of varying quality, according to age and to the 

 sex of the insects that are to result from them. Hence 

 method has to be introduced into the management of the 

 commissariat, and the nurslings are divided into classes 

 according to their size. 



But the young maggot-like Ant is a troublesome little 

 creature, and needs a good deal more attention than what 

 is involved in pro\-iding it with meals. Cleanliness is an 

 important element in its education, and as it cannot clean 

 itself, this duty also falls upon the nurses, which perform 

 the necessary operations with their mouth organs. Just 

 in the same way too the workers will clean one another, 

 and Sir John Lubbock found that the Ants he had marked 

 with spots of paint, so as to be recognizable again, had the 

 spots iu a little while removed by their friends, a delicate 

 personal attention which suggests curious ideas of etiquette. 

 For the attainment of the most healthy condition, a 

 certain degree of warmth and moisture is necessary for 

 the larv;e, and, as the various chambers iu the nest will 

 usually differ somewhat as regards these conditions, there 

 results the necessity of carr3'ing the babies about from 

 place to place. The mandibles are again called into 

 requisition for this purpose, and, like a cat carrying her 

 kittens, the nurses gently take up the grubs in their jaws, 

 and hurry with them along the galleries from nursery to 

 nursery ; if the sun shines, they will be taken to the top- 

 most galleries, not indeed that they may be dii-ectly 

 exposed to its rays, for this would apparently be injurious, 

 but that they may be as near to its influence as the thick- 

 ness of the covering stone or roof of the nest will permit. 

 When the weather is cloudy, or when night comes, the_v 

 must be carried down ; or again, let but the nest be dis- 

 turbed so as to admit the direct sunlight, and plenty of 

 pairs of eager jaws are ready at a moment's notice to seize 

 and hurry off below ground their fat and deshy charges, 

 until, in a few minutes, none are left exposed. Of course 

 this may be quite as much for the sake of saving the 

 treasures from the possible grip of the rash intruder, as to 

 remove them from the iutiuence of the direct sunlight. 



The length of the larval life varies greatly. One of the 

 common red Ants {Myrniua ni:/i)Wilis) appears to be 

 amongst the quickest in development, and in some of Sir 

 John Lubbock's nests this species remamed less than a 

 month in the larval condition. On the other hand, some 

 of the larvas of the yellow Ant (Ln.-ilu.s ti((rux), viz., those 

 of the autumn brood, are very tardy in their progress, and 

 remain grubs throughout the winter, lying torpid in the 

 deeper parts of the nest, destined not to complete their 

 growth till the spring sunshine re-awakens the population 

 of the nest, and supphes them again with energetic and 

 painstaking attendants. What happens to the grub at the 

 close of larvahood depends upon the species ; all change 

 into a chrysalis, but with a remarkable difl'erence, the 

 reason for which is not known. Those which when fixlly 

 growTi have not the power of stinging, as, for example, the 

 common black .\nt of the garden, envelope themselves in a 

 silken cocoon, while those which do sting, such as the 

 familiar red species before mentioned, have no such covering, 

 but simply cast the larval skin and remain naked as pup;i>. 

 This rule, however, is not absolute, and Latreille discovered 

 that the larv.e of one of our common dark-coloured stLngless 



Ants, Formica fusca (Fig. 3) sometimes spin cocoons and 

 sometimes do not. The pupa 

 of an Ant (Fig. 3B)is similar 

 to that of a bee, but not like 

 that of a moth, inasmuch as 

 it exhibits distinctly the out- 

 line of the various parts and 

 appendages of the future in- 

 sect, such as the head, legs, 

 antennfp, etc. But the whole 

 insect is covered with a thin 

 skin, whichhas to be removed 

 when it reaches maturity be- 

 fore it can make any use of 

 its perfected hmbs. In the 



case of the stLngless Ants -^ ^ ^El ^-^'^ \ 

 then, this insect, enveloped 

 in its thin skin, but with its 

 various parts more or less 

 distinctly revealed, is en- 

 closed m its silken shroud / '<^18P' \ 

 like a mummy iu a sarcopha- 



gus, the whole constituting a ^^"^- 3- — Quoeu of Form'wa fusca, 

 smooth oval body, with a dark ^'w"-'"? remiunts of wiugs. 

 dot at the end opposite that 



at which the head hes (Fig. 2 C). These are the familiar so- 

 called " Ants' eggs " above mentioned, and thev have to 

 be carried about from one storey of the nest to another in 

 the same way as the \a.v\x. In fact, the anxiety of the 

 workers for the welfiire of these objects is extraordinary, 

 and those who have kept Ants' nests for observation have 

 made use of this passionate devotion to their young, 

 whether as larvse or pup;p, to mduce the Ants to travel ?n 

 such directions as may be desired for the purposes of 

 experiment, and the discovery of a store of larv* or pupa; in 

 any spot is to a worker Ant quite as strong an incentive to 

 exertion, and quite as important a piece of news to be 

 commimicated to its fellows, as it would be to come 

 unexpectedly upon an abundant supply of the most 

 delicious food. 



The change to the chrysalis condition is, of course, 

 not effected by the larv.fi till after it has spun its cocoon, 

 for when once it passes into this stage it becomes more 

 helpless than ever before, and would, but for the assistance 

 of the nurses, perish where it is and iu direct consequence of 

 its own act of walling itself round, and so cutting itself off 

 from the world by a continuous and impenetrable barrier of 

 silk. Here, again, appears strongly the helplessness of 

 the individual member of the social community, as con- 

 trasted with the independence and power of the solitary 

 insect. The caterpillars of many moths, as is well known, 

 before turning into the chrysalis condition, surround them- 

 selves with a silken cocoon, which is sometimes, as in the 

 case of the puss-moth, of so hard a consistency as to resist 

 strong pressure, and to oft'er considerable opposition even 

 to the entrance of the point of a knife. Within this 

 covering lies the limbless pupa, apparently as effectually 

 doomed to a hfelong imprisonment as any captive thrown 

 into the old Bastille. And j-et, without any assistance 

 fi-om outside, or any means other than what its own body 

 supphes, the imprisoned moth first throws off its hard and 

 crisp pupa skin, and then works its way through the walls 

 of the cocoon, and after a httle pause triumphantly 

 proceeds, in its own unaided strength, to the business of its 

 new hfe. Not so the Ant, however ; for Hberty, and mdeed, 

 for hfe itself, it is in many cases beholden to the same 

 unremitting attention that has presided over its destinies 

 hitherto. With a degree of intelligence which is truly 

 remarkable, the nurses divine the right moment when the 



