PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 101 
obstinately refusing to let go its hold was starved to death a, 
Professor Afzelius once related to me some particulars 
with respect to a species of ant in Sierra Leone, which 
proves the same point. He says that they march in 
columns that exceed all powers of numeration, and al- 
ways pursue a straight course, from which nothing can 
cause them to deviate: if they come to a house or other 
building, they storm or undermine it; if a river comes 
across them, though millions perish in the attempt, they 
endeavour to swim over it. 
This quality of perseverance in ants on one occasion 
led to very important results, which affected a large por- 
tion of this habitable globe; for the celebrated conqueror 
Timour, being once forced to take shelter from his ene- 
mies in a ruined building, where he sat alone many 
hours, desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless 
condition, he fixed his observation upon an ant that was 
carrying a grain of corn (probably a pupa) larger than 
itself up a high wall. Numbering the efforts that it 
made to accomplish this object, he found that the grain 
fell sixty-nine times to the ground, but the seventieth 
time it reached the top of the wall. “ This sight (said 
Timour) gave me courage at the moment; and I have 
never forgotten the lesson it conveyed”.” 
Madame Merian, in her Surinam Insects, speaking of 
the large-headed ant (Formica megacephala, \..), aftirms 
aT was much amused, when dining in the forest of Fontainebleau 
this summer, by the pertinacity with which the bill-aat (2*, rufa) at- 
tacked our food, haling from our very plates, while we were eating, 
long strips of meat many times their own size. 
» Related in the Quarterly Review for August 1816, p. 299. 
