THE COASTS OF SICILY. 207 



the history of Ants is not the less marvellous, although 

 it has not hitherto been made the theme of a poet's 

 song. In the ant, even more than in the bee, the 

 observer may note a strange blending of instinct and 

 reason manifested in extremely complex acts. Their 

 different families, which are all subjected to the rule 

 of a purely republican form of government, exhibit 

 the most complete differences in their habits. Be- 

 sides some species, whose colonies invariably inhabit 

 only trees, where they can find both nourishment 

 and shelter, there are others, which live exclusively 

 in dark underground excavations, where the light of 

 day never penetrates. Some of these curious insects, 

 meriting to a certain extent the reputation with 

 which the imaginative faculties of some writers have 

 endowed them, toil to gather together the food 

 required for the day's and the morrow's consump- 

 tion. Others again, who understand how to procure 

 the necessaries, and, perhaps, even the superfluities 

 of life, without giving themselves so much trouble, 

 imitate the habits of pastoral nations, and rear actual 

 herds and flocks of plant-lice (Aphides), watch over 

 their young charges during their infancy, construct 

 places of shelter for them, or put them out to 

 pasture within the ants' nest, repaying themselves for 

 all these cares by drawing abundant nourishment 

 from the saccharine fluid which these little creatures 

 secrete. Finally, there are some ant-communities 

 which, despising all domestic cares, emulate the 

 warlike tribes of old in their overbearing haugh- 

 tiness and contempt for labour, and contrive to 

 secure to themselves the services of slaves. One of 



