388 THE INSECT WORLD. 
be prepared for anything that may happen, and to supply all 
their necessities. 
Nothing is more amusing than to observe the shifts ants are 
put to in transporting objects of great size. They stumble, 
they tumble head over heels, they roll down precipices ; but, in 
spite of all accidents, return to their task, and always accom- 
plish it. | 
The tranquil inhabitants of these subterranean republics are 
bound together by a mutual affection in a devoted fraternity, 
which makes them ever ready to assist each other. They all help 
one another as much as they can. If an ant is tired, a comrade ~ 
carries it on its back. Those which are so absorbed with their 
work that they have no time to think of their food, are fed by 
their companions. When an ant is wounded, the first one who 
meets it renders it assistance, and carries it home. Latreille 
having torn the antenne from an ant, saw another approach the 
poor wounded one, and pour, with its tongue, a few drops of a 
yellow liquid on the bleeding wound. 
Huber the younger one day took an ant’s nest to populate one 
of those glass contrivances which he used for making his observa- 
tions, and which consisted of a sort of glass bell placed over the 
nest. Our naturalist set at liberty one part of the ants, which fixed 
themselves at the foot of a neighbouring chestnut tree. The 
rest were kept during four months in the apparatus, and at 
the end of this time Huber moved the whole into the garden, 
and a few ants managed to escape. Having met their old com- 
panions, who still lived at the foot of the chestnut tree, they 
recognised them. They were seen, in fact, all of them to gesti- 
culate, to caress each other mutually with their antenne, to take 
each other by the mandibles, as if to embrace in token of joy, 
and they then re-entered together the nest at the foot of the chest- 
nut tree. Very soon they came in a crowd to look for the other 
ants under the bell, and in a few hours our observer’s appa- 
ratus was completely evacuated by its prisoners. When an ant 
has. discovered any rich prey, far from enjoying it alone, like a 
gourmand, it invites all its companions to the feast. Community 
of goods and interests exists amongst all the members of this 
model society. It is the practical realisation of the dream formed 
