ANT. 44Q 



SECTION XIV. 



Common Ant. 

 Formica nigra. Linn. 



It is to the minute and indefatigable attention of the younger 

 Huber (son of the preceding) that we know any thing of the actual 

 history of this curious and extraordinary insect. We shall extract 

 his history, as we meet with it in an abridged form in the article 

 Zoology, of the Pantologia. 



The industry and activity of ants had attracted much notice 

 from the ancients j but in the mixture of truth and fable which 

 compose the accounts of Pliny, and of Aristotle, we find the er. 

 rors greatly preponderating ; and even the writings of modern na- 

 turalists contain a multitude of vague assertions, unsupported by 

 observations. By some their sagacity has been greatly exagge- 

 rated, and by others as unwarrantably depreciated. Leuwen- 

 hoek rectified many of the errors, and was the first who accurately- 

 distinguished the larves from the eggs. Swammerdam followed 

 them, with still greater minuteness, in all their transformations ; 

 and Linnaeus made us acquainted with several curious particulars 

 respecting these insects in the state of fly, which we shall after- 

 wards have occasion to notice. The labours of GeofFroy, De Geer, 

 Bonnett andLatreille, have added numerous facts on the economy of 

 ants, but still left many important questions undecided, to which 

 the more successful efforts of M. Huber have now given a satis- 

 factory solution. In his account of the external characters of the 

 species, which forms the introduction to his work, he avails himself 

 principally of the descriptions and method of Latreille. He agrees 

 with him in ascribing to them a tongue, an organ which Fabricius 

 had supposed them not possessed of. This tongue is spoon, 

 shaped ; and by means of it, the insect, according to M. Huber, is 

 enabled to lap up fluids with the greatest facility. He has disco- 

 vered no less than twenty -three species indigenous in Switzerland ; 

 but the particulars he has given us relate to a few of these only. 



Ants present us with many striking analogies with bees ; as in 

 them, we may in each species distinguish three modifications of sex, 

 namely, the males, the females, and the neuters or labourers ; 

 the latter being with respect to sex, in the same condition as the 



vol. t. 2 G 



