PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 95 
markable, they will sometimes return to. their original 
one before they are entirely settled in the new station ; 
when the recruiting goes in opposite directions, and the 
pairs pass each other on the road. You may stop the 
emigration for the present, if you can arrest the first re- 
cruiter, and take away his recruit?. 
I shall now relate to you some other portions of 
Myrmidonian History, which, though perhaps not so 
striking and wonderful as the preceding details, are not 
devoid of interest, and will serve to exemplify their in- 
credible diligence, labour, and ingenuity. 
In this country it is commonly in March, earlier or 
later according to the season, that ants first make their 
appearance, and they continue their labours till the 
middle or latter end of October. They emerge usually 
from their subterranean winter-quarters on some sunny 
day; when, assembling in crowds on the surface of the 
formicary, they may be observed in continual motion, 
walking incessantly over it and one another, without de- 
parting from home; as if their object, before they re- 
sumed their employments, was to habituate themselves 
to the action of the air and sun>. ‘This preparation re- 
quires a few days, and then the business of the year 
commences. ‘The earliest employment of ants is most 
probably to repair the injuries which their habitation has 
received during their state of inactivity: this observation 
more particularly applies to the hill-ant (2. rufa), all the 
upper stories of whose dwellings are generally laid flat 
by the winter rains and snow; but every species, it may 
well be supposed, has at this season some deranged 
4 See Huber, chap. iv. § 3. » Gould, 67. De Geer, ii. 1054. 
