VOL. XLIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 301 



they grow very sparingly, the succeeding winter they seem at a stand; in the 

 beginning of April of the 2d year they visibly augment every day; and in 6 

 weeks, or by the end of May, the male and female attain their greatest propor- 

 tions, and are ready for another change. This long continuance of ants in a 

 vermicular state he thinks a great curiosity, hardly to be met with in any other 

 class of insects, the female ant continuing above a year and quarter, the workers 

 a year, the males somewhat more. 



In treating of the transmutation of ant vermicles to nymphs or aurelias, he 

 says, the vermicles weave in the manner of silk -worms, and in a few days infold 

 themselves in a soft silken kind of tissue; they henceforth assume, and, while 

 confined in this monument, continue the character of aurelias. These are the 

 small bodies which abound in the settlements in the summer months, and are 

 vulgarly reputed ant-eggs; but their size and visible transmutation, show the 

 mistake. 



He takes notice of a remarkable variation in the aurelias of the red ants. 

 When the worms arrive at their period of transmutation, they do not infold 

 themselves in a tissue or shell, like the others, but lie motionless, and to outward 

 appearance insensible; in a few days they look whiter than ordinary, and in this 

 manner gradually put on the form of ants. Thus Providence is tied down to no 

 particular laws, but can by a surprising variety accomplish the same ends. 



In the 7th chap, he treats of the transformation of the several aurelias to flies 

 and common ants, with a description of their structure, duration, and other 

 curiosities relating to the change. But the just progress of ants'-eggs, vermicles, 

 nymphs, &c. cannot, he says, be precisely stated; because they will not arrive 

 at maturity under glasses, as Swammerdam before him had observed. 



As soon as the ant-nymphs, surrounded with a tissue, are tending to life, the 

 workers give them air, by an aperture in the head part of the covering, which 

 aperture they gradually enlarge; and after a day or two take out the young, and 

 expose it to the freer access of the sun-beams, which are of great force in pro- 

 moting its maturity. 



He observes, that philosophers have usually confounded the 2 different sorts of 

 ant flies, the large and small, considering them all as males ; though there be so 

 wide and manifest a variance in the colour, size, &c. that the naked eye may 

 easily distinguish it. On the contrary therefore he presumes they are of different 

 sexes; the small ones he takes to be males, and the large females; and thinks it 

 highly probable, that some of these females afterwards give birth to new colonies, 

 and entitle themselves to the dignity of queens ; there being many strong expe- 

 rimental reasons to support so uncommon a curiosity ; which he also recites, and 

 answers the chief objection against it, taken from the number of these ant flies; 



