48 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
especially the illustrious Swedish entomologist De Geer. 
Gould also, who, though no systematical naturalist, was 
a man of sense and observation, has thrown great light 
upon the history of ants, and anticipated several of what 
are accounted the discoveries of more modern writers on 
this subject*. Latreille’s Natural History of Ants is like- 
wise extremely valuable, not only as giving a systematic 
a M. P. Huber, in the account which, in imitation of De Geer, he 
has given of the discoveries made by his predecessors in the history of 
ants, having passed without notice, probably ignorant of the existence 
of such a writer, those of our intelligent countryman Gould, I shall 
here give a short analysis of them ; from which it will appear, that 
he was one of their best, or rather their very best historian, till M. 
Huber’s work came out. His Account of English Ants was published 
in 1747, long before either Linné or De Geer had written upon the 
subject. BP 
I. Species. He describes five species of English ants ; viz. 1. The 
hill ant (Formica rufa, L). 2. The jet ant (2. fuliginosa, Latr.), 
3. The red ant (Myrmica rubra, Latr. Formica, Lin.): He observes, 
that this species alone is armed with a sting; whereas, the others 
make a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid into 
it. 4. The common yellow ant (/. flava, Latr.): and 5. The small 
black ant (F. fusca, L.). 
II. gg. He observes that the eggs producing males and females 
are laid the earliest, and are the largest :—he seems, however, to 
have confounded the black and brown eggs of Aphides with those 
of ants. 
Ill. Larva. These, when first hatched, he observes, are hairy, and 
continue in the larva state twelve months or more. He, as well as 
De Geer, was aware that the larve of ALyrmica rubra do not, as other 
ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa. 
IV. Pupa. He found that female ants continue in this state about 
six weeks, and males and neuters only a month. 
V. Imago. Heknew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that fe- 
males cast their wings previous to their becoming mothers; that, at 
the time of their swarms, large numbers of both sexes become the 
prey of birds and fishes: that the surviving females, sometimes in 
numbers, go under ground, particularly in mole-hills, and lay eggs ; 
but he had not discovered that they then act the part of neuters in 
