PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 79 
evacuate it, each carrying off in its mouth a larva or 
pupa which it has seized in spite of its unhappy guardians. 
On their return home with their spoil, they pursue ex- 
actly the route by which they went to the attack. Their 
success on these expeditions is rather the result of their 
impetuosity, by which they damp the courage of the 
negroes, than of their superior strength, though they 
are a larger animal; for sometimes a very small body of 
them, not more than 150, has been known to succeed in 
their attack and to carry off their booty *. 
Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have 
met with fresh confirmation of the extraordinary history here re- 
lated. Having been induced to visit Paris this summer, and calling 
upon M. Latreille (so justly celebrated as one of the first entomolo- 
gists of the age, and to whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly 
attentions which he paid to me during my too short stay im that 
metropolis), he assured me, that he had verified all the principal 
facts advanced by Huber. He has also said the same in his Considéra- 
tions nouvelles et générales sur les insectes vivant en Societé. (Mém. 
du Mus. iii. 407.) At the same time he informed me that there was 
a nest of the rufescent ants in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place 
he afterwards was so good as to accompany me. We went on the 
25th of June. The day was excessively hot and sultry. A little be- 
fore five in the afternoon we began our search. At first we could 
not discern a single ant in motion. Ina minute or two, however, 
my friend directed my attention to one individual—two or three 
more next appeared—and soon a numerous army was tc be seen 
winding through the long grass of a low ridge in which was their 
formicary. Just at the entrance of the wood from Paris, on the right- 
hand and near the road, is a bare place paled in for the Sunday 
amusement of the lower orders—to this the ants directed their 
march, and upon entering it divided into two columns, which tra- 
versed it rapidly and with great apparent eagerness ; all the while ex- 
ploring the ground with their antennz as beagles with their noses, 
evidently as if in pursuit of game. Those in the van, as Huber also 
observed, kept perpetually falling back into the main body. When 
they had passed this inclosure, they appeared for some time to be at 
aloss, making no progress but only coursing about: but after a fev 
