208 SALMONIA. 



POIET. You are perfectly right; and 

 though it would be irrelevant to our present 

 subject, I could almost wish for the sake of 

 amusing our friends, that you would detail 

 to us some other parts of the marvellous 

 history of these wonderful animals, which if 

 not so well authenticated, might be supposed 

 a philosophical romance. Such as the neu- 

 ter or working ants feeding each other and 

 their offspring; the manner in which they 

 make, defend, and repair their dwellings, 

 provide their food, watch and attend to the 

 female, and take care of her eggs ; their ex- 

 traordinary mode of acquiring and defending 

 the aphides and cocci, which bear to them 

 the same relation that cattle do to man, 

 which are fed by them with so much care, 

 and the milk of which forms so important a 

 part of their food ; the predatory excursions 

 of a particular species to carry off pupa 

 which they bring up slaves. 



HAL. To enter into any of the details of 

 the history of insects in society, would carry 

 us into an interminable, though interesting 

 subject, which would soon lose all relation to 



