374 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



lead them by their mandibles, and evidently appear to propose the jour- 

 ney to them. If they seem disposed to accompany them, the recruiting 

 officer, for so he may be called, prepares to carry off his recruit, who, 

 suspending himself upon his mandibles, hangs coiled up spirally under 

 his neck ; — all this passes in an amicable manner after mutual salutations. 

 Sometimes, however, the recruiter takes the other by surprise, and drags 

 him from the ant-hill without giving him time to consider or resist. 

 When arrived at the proposed habitation, the suspended ant uncoils itself, 

 and, quitting its conductor, becomes a recruiter in its turn. The pair 

 return to the old nest, and each carries off a fresh recruit, which being 

 arrived at the spot joins in the undertaking : — thus the number of 

 recruiters keeps progressively increasing, till the path between the new 

 and the old city is full of goers and comers, each of the former laden 

 with a recruit. What a singular and amusing scene is then exhibited of 

 the little people thus employed 1 When an emigration of a rufescent 

 colony is going forward, the negroes are seen carrying their masters ; and 

 the contrast of the red with the black renders it peculiarly striking. 

 The little turf-ants {IShjrmica 1 ccsspituni) upon these occasions carry their 

 recruits uncoiled, with their head downwards and their body in the air. 



This extraordinary scene continues several days ; but when all the 

 neuters are acquainted with the road to the new city, the recruiting 

 ceases. As soon as a sufficient number of apartments to contain them 

 are prepared, the young brood, with the males and females, are conveyed 

 thither, and the whole business is concluded. When the spot thus selected 

 for their residence is at a considerable distance from the old nest, the ants 

 construct some intermediate receptacles, resembling small ant-hills, con- 

 sisting of a cavity filled with fragments of straw and other materials, in 

 which they form several cells ; and here at first they deposit their recruits, 

 males, females, and brood, which they afterwards conduct to the final 

 settlement. These intermediate stations sometimes become permanent 

 nests, which, however, maintain a connection with the capital city.^ 



While the recruiting is proceeding it appears to occasion no sensation 

 in the original nest; all goes on in it as usual, and the ants that are not 

 yet recruited pursue their ordinary occupations: whence it is evident that 

 the change of station is not an enterprise undertaken by the whole com- 

 munity. Sometimes many neuters set about this business at the same 

 time, which gives a short existence (for in the end they all re-unite into 

 one) to many separate formicaries. If the ants dislike their new city, they quit 

 it for a third, and even for a fourth: and what is remarkable, they will 

 sometimes return to their original one before they are entirely settled in 

 the new station ; when the recruiting goes in opposite directions, and 

 the pairs pass each other on the road. You may stop the emigration 

 for the present, if you can arrest the first recruiter, and take away his 

 recruit.^ 



These European emigrations, however, are somewhat insignificant 

 when compared with those which the neuters of some of the tropical 



' Walking one day early in July in a spot where I used to notice a sini^le nest of Formica 

 rufa I observed that a new colony had been formed of considerable magnitude ; and between 

 il and the original nest were six or seven smaller settlements. 



* See Iluber, chap. iv. ^ 3. 



