260 THE POSSORIA. 



during the winter, have really no foundation, except 

 in the close resemblance between the cocoons of some 

 species and small grains of corn, although it must be 

 confessed that one Indian species (the Atta providens 

 of Sykes) has been observed to lay up a large store of 

 grass seeds, but for what purpose does not appear to 

 be fully made out. Moreover, certain species appear 

 to be naturally of a lazy disposition, the neuters (for 

 they cannot be called workers) doing no work at all, 

 but making forays into the cities of their more indus- 

 trious relatives, and carrying off numbers of their 

 larvse and pupse, the workers produced from which 

 perform all the laborious duties required for the 

 welfare of the nest in which they are thus retained in 

 slavery. Not the least singular fact connected with 

 the Ants, is the power which they evidently possess of 

 communicating intelligence to one another by touch- 

 ing their antennae ; in this way, if the nest be dis- 

 turbed, the Ants may be seen running about in 

 confusion, but every now and then when two meet, 

 they stop and cross their antennae ; information of a 

 supply of food is conveyed in the same manner, and 

 in any emergency, the same method of commu- 

 nication appears to be resorted to. 



In the next tribe of the Aculeate Hymenoptera we 

 meet with no such remarkable social instincts as 

 those which have given the Ants an interest in the 

 eyes even of the ignorant from time immemorial ; the 

 species exhibit only two sexual forms, and the ab- 

 sence of the neuter nurses leaves no room for that 

 wonderful division of labour, which, in the Ants, has 

 given rise to such a curious picture of mutual co- 



