PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 351 



observations — which your partiality to your friend may, perhaps, induce 

 you to think not wlioliy devoid of interest — that it has been my fortune 

 to make. 



The societies of ants, as also of other Hxjmcnoptera, difier from those 

 of the Termites in having inactive larvae and pupae, the neuters or workers 

 combining in themselves both the military and civil functions. Besides 

 the helpless larvae and pupaj, which have no locomotive powers, these 

 societies consist of females, males, and workers. The office of \he females, 

 at their first exclusion distinguished by a pair of ample wings, (which, 

 however, as you have heard, they soon cast,) is the foundation of new 

 colonies, and the furnishing of a constant supply of eggs for the mainte- 

 nance of the population in the old nests as well as in the new. These 

 are usually the least numerous part of the community.^ The office of 

 the males, which are also winged, and at the time of swarming are 

 extremely numerous, is merely the impregnation of the females : after the 

 season for this is past, they die. Upon the ivorkers^ devolves, except in 

 nascent colonies, all the work, as well as the defence of the community, 

 of which they are the most numerous portion. In some societies of ants 

 the workers are of two dimensions. In the nests of F. rufa and Jiava 

 such were observed by. Gould, the size of one exceeding that of the other 

 about one third.-^ (In my specimens, the large workers of F. rufa are 

 nearly three times, and of F. jiava twice, the size of the small ones.) 

 All were equally engaged in the labors of the colony. Large workers 

 were also noticed by M. P. Huber in the nests of Polycrgus rufescens^, 

 but he could not ascertain their office. More light, however, has been of 

 late thrown on this subject by the observations af M. Lacordaire and M. 

 Lund upon these large workers, as they occur in the nests of South 

 American ants. They have ascertained them to be strictly the soldiers, 

 which, though of a different origin, like those of the Termites before 

 described, have it expressly in charge to defend the rest of the community ; 

 for which office their size — full twice that of the other workers — and their 

 immense heads and jaws in proportion, admirably adapt them. M. Lacor- 

 daire informs us that, both in Cayenne and Brazil, he has been a thousand 

 times witness of the accuracy of the facts stated by M. Lund as to the 

 military office of these large and big-headed workers of Atta cephalotes, 

 and aUied species, during the marches and excursions undertaken by the 

 society. They never mix themselves with the mass of the moving 

 columns ; but, stationed on their flanks, they are seen sometimes to march 

 forward ; then to return and halt a moment, as if to observe the troop 



> Gould says that the males and femaJes are nearly equal in number (p. (V2.) ; but from 

 Ruber's observations it seems to follow that the former are most numerous (p. 96.). 



2 That the neuter ants, like those of the hive-bee, are imperfectly organized females, 

 appears from the foUowins: observation of M. Haher {Nouv. Observ. Ice. ii. 443.) — " Les 

 fourmis nous ont encore offert i\ eel cgard une analogie tresfrappante ; A la vcrite, nous 

 n'avons jamais vu pondre les ouvricres, mais nous avons etc icmoins de leur accouplement. 

 Ce fait pourroit etre atteste par plusieurs membres de la Socicie d'Histoire Naiurelle de 

 Geneve, <\ qui nous I'avons fait voir; I'approche du m;\le 6ioit toujours suivie de la mort 

 de I'ouvriere ; leur conformation ne permet done pas qu'elles deviennent meres, mais 

 I'inslinct du mk\e prouve du moins que cesont des femelles." 



3 Gould. 103. 



* M. Huber calls this an apterous female ; yet he conld not discover that they laid eggs ; 

 and he owns that they more nearly resembled the workers than the females, and that he 

 should have considered them as such, had he seen them mix with them in their excursions. — 

 Huber, p. 251. 



