406 Insects. 



held the same opinion, founded on observation. I have repeatedly 

 examined the nests of Formica fusca, rlava and rufa, in winter, and 

 have always found the ants in a torpid state; and I believe that if ants 

 require nourishment in early spring, previously to their leaving their 

 subterranean abodes, they derive it from those species of insects found 

 in their nests, as various species of Aphis, Claviger, Atemeles, &c. 

 In the autumn of 1840 I was observing the various employments of a 

 colony of Formica rufa, and was struck on observing numbers of neu- 

 ters arriving, each carrying a similar substance in its mandibles. I 

 caught several individuals, and found it was the seed of some species 

 of plant. About four yards off was a sloping sand-bank, and I ob- 

 served a continuous line of ants between this and their nest, and 

 somewhere in the direction of the bank they found the seeds. I 

 watched them carefully, and soon detected an ant scampering down 

 the bank after a falling seed. They were the seeds of the common 

 broom, and just at this season the pods were discharging them. I 

 was curious to know for what purpose the ants collected these seeds, 

 and found that they invariably deposited them outside their nest. All 

 the ants did not bring seeds; some brought small pebbles, or other 

 substances ; and I was satisfied that the seeds were merely for the 

 purpose of constructing their nest ; probably the seeds, stones, &c, 

 were intended to give greater solidity to the roof. I presume the spe- 

 cies of ant observed collecting the violet-seeds was the common gar- 

 den ant [Formica fuse a) ; and I should be inclined to believe that the 

 seeds were intended to be used in the construction of their nest, for I 

 have repeatedly observed that species in a garden at Brompton, where 

 they had chosen the interstices of a brick wall, carrying all manner of 

 small substances, doubtless for the purpose of filling up all chinks 

 and crevices, and making all comfortable within. 



While on the interesting subject of ants, I will record the result of 

 some experiments which I have made ; and I will premise, that as 

 what 1 am about to relate is in direct opposition to the opinions of 

 Gould, of Huber, and I believe all modern investigators of the habits 

 of ants, if the same care and observation are exercised by any one 

 anxious to prove my statement, I doubt not he will become a convert 

 to my opinion. Huber says, that previous to ants changing to the 

 pupa state, they "are enclosed in a tissue spun by themselves before 

 their metamorphosis ; but they cannot, like other insects, liberate 

 themselves from this covering, by effecting an opening in it with their 

 teeth." This opinion was of course formed in consequence of Huber's 

 having observed the neuters assisting the ants to escape from the 



