380 NATURAL HISTORY. 



objects of the most assiduous care on the part of their foster-mothers. From them are produced 

 new workers, and in the course of the summer a number of winged males and females, which remain 

 in the nest until their instincts tell them that the conditions of weather outside are favourable for 

 them to take their nuptial night. The several individuals of the same species over a considerable 

 district generally fly out on the same day, and in this way often produce the effect of dark clouds, 

 especially when, in obedience to an instinct that prompts them to hover about an elevated object, 

 they select the summit of the steeple of a church or of some lofty tower as a place of rendezvous. 



Of course, during these vagaries immense numbers of the insects fall a prey to birds, and 

 those of the males which escape this fate probably perish soon after their return to the ground. 

 The females, on the other hand, after their descent, may be seen running about with their wings 

 in a more or less dislocated condition. The wings, in fact, drop off, or are pulled off very soon 

 after the females reach the ground, and they then either establish a new nest after the fashion of 

 the Wasps and Humble Bees, or find their way into an established nest of their own species. These 

 fertilised females then furnish eggs for the continuance of the species, and the larvae hatched 

 from them are fed and cared for by the workers, as already described. 



The duties of the workers are, in fact, as multifarious as those of the worker Bees. They 

 have the care of the construction, maintenance, and enlargement of the common dwelling, and 

 upon them also depends its defence from enemies, in which they display the greatest courage and 

 determination. As already mentioned, in some species there is a special kind of worker (soldiers), 

 whose supposed duty it is to protect the nest from invaders, and in these the head is very large, and 

 the mandibles correspondingly powerful ; but even the ordinary workers are exceedingly courageous 

 when called upon to defend their home. A further duty is the bringing in of provisions, and 

 in this the workers are indefatigable. Their food consists of both animal and vegetable matters, and, 

 like the Bees, they are particularly fond of saccharine substances, which they obtain from flowers 

 and fruit, and also from the Aphides, or Plant-lice. These insects secrete a sweet fluid, which 

 flows in the form of clear drops from two small tubules placed on the sides of the abdomen near 

 its extremity ; these drops the Ants greedily suck in, and they have the art of inducing the 

 Aphides to produce further supplies of the same liquid by gently stroking them with their antennae, 

 a process which has been not inaptly compared to milking. Of animal food, scarcely anything 

 comes amiss to them ; the flesh and other soft parts of small dead animals that may chance to lie 

 near the nests of Ants ai'e speedily cleared away ; and many tropical species immediately attack 

 and destroy insects much larger than themselves, overcoming all their struggles by mere force of 

 numbers. The larvae are fed upon drops of fluid disgorged by the workers. 



The labours of the workers on behalf of the young are not, however, limited to feeding them. 

 In tine weather, and in the middle of the clay, the larvae and pupae are brought into the more 

 superficial chambers of the nest, or even sometimes quite outside of it ; at the approach of night, 

 or of bad weather, they are conveyed to the most deeply-seated apartments, where they may 

 be protected from injurious influences. The anxiety of the workers for the safety of their helpless 

 charges is always strikingly manifested in the case of any injury to the nest. If a portion of the 

 outside be broken down, a crowd of workers instantly rush to the breach, a part of them setting 

 to work at once to repair the damages, while others immediately seize upon any larvaa and pupae 

 that may be mingled with the ruins, and bear them off in their mandibles to a place of safety. 



There are so many remarkable facts known about these most interesting insects, that one 

 is embarrassed in selecting what will serve best for the completion of the general sketch of their 

 history, which is all we can hope to give here. One very singular fact is that although it has 

 been repeatedly proved that the inhabitants of a nest will severely maltreat and even kill individuals 

 of the same species belonging to a different nest, which may by chance intrude into their dwelling, 

 not only may nests belonging to the same species be found in juxtaposition upon the same piece of 

 ground, and furnished with passages establishing free intercommunication between the separate nests, 

 but in a great many cases colonies of different species inhabit the same nest. Thus Stenamma 

 westwoodii, & small species of the double-knotted gi-oup of Ants, has never been met with except 

 in the nests of the great Wood Ant (Formica ruja) and an allied species (F. congerens) ; and although 

 nothing appears to be known of the nature of the connection between these two seemingly incongruous 



