156 Life and Immortality. 



I am not willing to admit that in every case that may arise 

 in which the weak and disabled are sacrificed, that it is done 

 for the material benefit of the physically able and robust. 

 How the destruction of the weak and nearly-developed ant 

 can result in good to the colony, in view of the fact that not 

 the slightest effort to escape the danger by flight is under- 

 taken, the sole object being the hiding of the young, it is 

 most difBcult to conceive. 



There seems to be one of two theories, in the writer's 

 judgment, that will, in anything like a satisfactory manner, 

 account for this strange, abnormal habit upon the part of an 

 insect that has been proverbially distinguished for its kind 

 and affectionate disposition towards the tender beings com- 

 mitted to its trust ; either to attribute it to an unwillingness 

 and dislike to see its offspring made the servants of a hostile 

 race or the subjects of ill-treatment and abuse, or to the 

 survival of a habit of the past when its ancestors were a 

 migratory, or nomadic, species. 



That a feeling of repugnance does sometimes take posses- 

 sion of animal nature when the objects of parental care and 

 solicitude are, or are about to be, reduced to slavery or con- 

 finement, and impels to actions of cruelty, will be patent 

 from what follows : 



A friend, several summers ago, having procured a pair of 

 young robins, placed them in a cage, which he hung from 

 a tree-branch close to his dwelling, where the parent-birds 

 could have an opportunity to feed them. All went well for 

 a few days, when the parents, who had busied themselves in 

 the intervals of feeding in attempts to secure their release, 

 finding their efforts unavailing, flew away, but only to return 

 with something green in their bills, most probably poisonous 

 caterpillars, which they fed to their offspring. A few min- 

 utes later and they lay in the bottom of the cage dead, but 

 the parents, as if conscious of what would result, flew away, 

 and never came back. 



