PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 53 
prey of fish, I am enabled to assert from my own obser- 
vation.—In the beginning of August 1812, I was going up 
the Orford river in Suffolk, in a row-boat, in the evening, 
when my attention was caught by an infinite number of 
winged ants, both males and females, at which the fish 
were every where darting, floating alive upon the surface 
of the water. While passing the river, these had pro- 
bably been precipitated into it, either by the wind, or by 
a heavy shower which had just fallen. And M. Huber 
after the same event observed the earth strewed with fe- 
males that had lost their wings, all of which could not 
form colonies?. 
Captain Haverfield, R. N. gave me an account of an 
extraordinary appearance of ants observed by him in 
the Medway, in the autumn of 1814, when he was first- 
Jieutenant of the Clorinde—which is confirmed by the 
following letter addressed by the surgeon of that ship, 
now Dr. Bromley, to Mr. MacLeay: 
*‘ In September 1814, being on the deck of the hulk 
to the Clorinde, my attention was drawn to the water by 
the first-lieutenant (Haverfield) observing there was 
something black floating down with the tide. On look- 
ing with a glass, I discovered they were insects.—The 
boat was sent, and brought a bucket full of them on 
board ; 
they proved to bea large species of ant, and 
extended from the upper part of Salt-pan reach out to- 
wards the Great Nore, a distance of five or six miles. 
The column appeared to be in breadth eight or ten feet, 
and in height about six inches, which I suppose must 
have been from their resting one upon another.” Pur~ 
| a Huber, 1005. 
