VOL. LXXI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 73 



running on the ground in chace of each other ; sometimes with a wing or 1 still 

 hanging to their bodies, which are not only' useless, but seem rather cumber- 

 some. The greater part have no wings, but they run exceedingly fast, the males 

 after the females ; Mr. S. sometimes remarked 2 males after one female, con- 

 tending with great eagerness who should win the prize, regardless of the 

 innumerable dangers that surrounded them. 



They are now become, from being one of the most active, industrious, and 

 rapacious, from one of the most fierce and implacable little animals in the world, 

 the most innocent, helpless, and cowardly ; never making the least resistance to 

 the smallest ant. The ants are to be seen on every side in infinite numbers, of 

 various species and sizes, dragging these annual victims of the laws of nature to 

 their different nests. It is wonderful that a pair should ever escape so many 

 dangers, and get into a place of security. Some however are so fortunate ; and 

 being found by some of the labouring insects that are continually running about 

 the surface of the ground under their covered galleries, are elected kings and 

 queens of new states ; all those who are not so elected and preserved, certainly 

 perish, and most probably in the course of the following day. The manner in 

 which these labourers protect the happy pair from their innumerable enemies, 

 not only on the day of the massacre of almost all their race, but for a long time 

 after, will, Mr. S. hopes, justify him in the use of the term election. The little 

 industrious creatures immediately inclose them in a small chamber of clay suit- 

 able to their size, into which at first they leave but one small entrance, large 

 enough for themselves and the soldiers to go in and out, but much too little for 

 either of the royal pair to make use of ; and when necessity obliges them to 

 make more entrances, they are never larger ; so that, of course, the voluntary 

 subjects charge themselves with the task of providing for the offspring of their 

 sovereigns, as well as to work and to fight for them, till they shall have raised a 

 progeny capable at least of dividing the task with them. 



About this time a most extraordinary change begins to take place in the queen, 

 to which Mr. S. knows nothing similar, except in the pulex penetrans of 

 Linneus, the jigger of the West Indies, and in the different species of coccus, 

 cochineal. The abdomen of this female begins gradually to distend and enlarge 



even grow fat on them ; but he does not say what methods they take to procure or dress them. And 

 other writers mention their being an article of diet in different parts of South America. 



Sir Hans Sloane says, the silk-cotton tree worm is esteemed by the Indians and negroes beyond 

 marrow. This worm is no more than a large maggot, being the caterpillar of a large Capricorn 

 beetle, or goat chafer : the larva of a pretty large cerambix, which is also brought from Africa, 

 where I have eaten those worms roasted. This insect is most probably to be found in all countries 

 where the silk-cotton tree (bombax) is indigenous. I have discoursed with several gentlemen on the 

 taste of the white ants ; and we have always agreed, that they are most delicious. One gentleman 

 compared them to sugared marrow, another to sugared cream and a paste of sweet almonds. — Orig. 

 VOL. XV. L 



