PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 357 



ants ; and its proceedings merit separate notice, since they differ consider- 

 ably from those of the rufescents. They construct their nests under 

 hedges of a southern aspect, and likewise attack the hills both of the 

 negroes and miners. On the 15th of July, at ten in the morning, Huber 

 observed a small band of these ants sallying forth from their formicary, 

 and marching rapidly to a neighboring nest of negroes, around which it 

 dispersed. The inhabitants, rushing out in crowds, attacked them and 

 took several prisoners : those that escaped advanced no further, but 

 appeared to wait for succors ; small brigades kept frequently arriving to 

 reinforce them, which emboldened them to approach nearer to the city 

 they had blockaded ; upon this their anxiety to send couriers to their own 

 nest seemed to increase ; these spreading a general alarm, a large re- 

 inforcement immediately set out to join the besieging army ; yet even then 

 they did not begin the battle. Almost all the negroes, coming out of their 

 fortress, formed themselves in a body about two feet square in front of it, 

 and there expected the enemy. Frequently skirmishes were the prelude 

 to the main conflict, which was begun by the negroes. Long before 

 success appeared dubious they carried off their pupae, and heaped them 

 up at the entrance to their nest, on the side opposite to that on which the 

 enemy approached. The young females also fled to the same quarter. 

 The sanguine ants at length rush upon the negroes, and attacking them on 

 all sides, after a stout resistance the latter, renouncing all defence, endeavor 

 to make off to a distance with the pupae they have heaped up: — the 

 host of assailants pursues, and strives to force from them these objects of 

 their care. Many also enter the formicary, and begin to carry off the 

 young brood that are left in it. A continued chain of ants engaged in 

 this employment extends from nest to nest, and the day and part of the 

 night pass before all is finished. A garrison being left in the captured 

 city, on the following morning the business of transporting the brood is 

 renewed. It often happens (for this species of ant loves to change its 

 habitation) that the conquerers emigrate with all their family to the acqui- 

 sition which their valor has gained. All the incursions of F. songuinea 

 take place in the space of a month, and they make only five or six in the 

 year. They will sometimes travel 150 paces to attack a negro colony. 



After reading this account of expeditions undertaken by ants for so 

 extraordinary a purpose, you will be curious to know how the slaves are 

 treated in the nests of these marauders — whether they live happily, or 

 labor under an oppressive yoke. You must recollect that they are not 

 carried off, like our negroes, at an age when the amor patrice and all the 

 charities of life which bind them to their country, kindred, and friends, 

 are in their full strength, but in what may he called the helpless days of 

 infancy, or in their state of repose, before they can have formed any 

 associations or imbibed any notions that render one place and society more 

 dear to them than another. Preconceived ideas, therefore, do not exist 

 to influence their happiness, which must altogether depend upon the treat- 

 ment which they experience at the hands of their new masters. Here 

 the goodness of Providence is conspicuous ; which, although it has gifted 

 these creatures with an instinct so extraordinary, and seemingly so unnatural, 

 has not made it a source of misery to the objects of it. 



You will here, perhaps, imagine that I have not sufficiently taken into 



