B4. PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
they are not likely to experience the poignant afHiction 
felt by parents when deprived of their children ; especially 
when you further consider, that most probably some of 
their brood are rescued from the general pillage; or at 
any rate their females are left uninjured, to, restore the 
diminished population of their colonies, and to supply 
them with those objects of attention, the larvae, &c. so 
necessary to that development of their instincts in which 
consists their happiness. 
But to return to the point from which I digressed— 
The negro and miner ants suffer no diminution of happi- 
ness, and are exposed to no unusual hardships and op- 
pression in consequence of being transplanted into a 
foreign nest. ‘Their lite is passed in much the same em- 
ployments as would have occupied it in their native resi- 
dence. They build or repair the common dwelling; 
they make excursions to collect food; they attend upon 
the females; they feed them and the larvee ; and they 
pay the necessary attention to the daily sunning of the 
eggs, larvee, and pup. Besides this, they have also 
to feed their masters and to carry them about the nest. 
This you will say is a serious addition to the ordinary 
occupations of their own colonies: but when you con- 
sider the greater division of labour in these mixed so- 
cieties, which sometimes unite both negroes and miners 
in the same dwelling, so that three distinct races live to- 
gether, from their vast numbers so far exceeding those 
of the native nest, you will not think this too severe em- 
ployment for so industrious an animal. 
But you will here ask, perhaps—“ Do the masters take 
no part in these domestic employments ? At least, surely, 
they direct their slaves, and see that they keep to their 
