86 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
and preserved the life of the neuter rufescents that still 
survived. What a picture of beneficent industry, con- 
trasted with the baleful effects of sloth, does this interest- 
ing anecdote afford! Another experiment which he 
tried made the contrast equally striking. He put a large 
portion of one of these mixed colonies into a woollen 
bag, in the mouth of which he fixed a small tube of wood, 
glazed at the top, which at the other end was fitted to 
the entrance of a kind of hive. The second day the tube 
was crowded with negroes going and returning :—the 
indefatigable diligence and activity manifested by them 
in transporting the young brood and their rufescent mas- 
ters, whose bodies were suspended upon their mandibles, 
was astonishing. ‘hese last took no active part in the 
busy scene, while their slaves showed the greatest anxiety 
about them, generally carrying them into the hive; and 
if they sometimes contented themselves with depositing 
them at the entrance of the tube, it was that they might 
use greater dispatch in fetching the rest. The rufescent 
when thus set down remained for a moment coiled up 
without motion, and then leisurely unrolling itself, looked 
all around, as if it was quite at a loss what direction to 
take ;—it next went up to the negroes, and by the play 
of its antennae seemed to implore their succour, till one 
of them attending to it conducted it into the hive. 
Beings so entirely dependent, as these masters are 
upon their slaves, for every necessary, comfort, and en- 
joyment of their life, can scarcely be supposed to treat 
them with rigour or unkindness :—so far from this, it is 
evident from the preceding details, that they rather look 
up to them, and are in some degree under their control. 
The above observations, with respect to the indolence 
