104 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
that after being carried for some time, it was let go in a 
friendly manner, and received no personal injury. ‘This 
amusement, or whatever title you please to give it, is 
often repeated, particularly amongst the hill-ants, who 
are very fond of this sportive exercise*.” A nest of ants 
which Bonnet found in the head of a teazle, when en- 
joying the full sun, which seems the acme of formic fe- 
licity, amused themselves with carrying each other on 
their backs, the rider holding with his mandibles the 
neck of his horse, and embracing it closely with his 
legs>, But the most circumstantial account of their 
sports is given by Huber. “I approached one day,” 
says he, “one of their formicaries (he is speaking of 
F. rufa) exposed to the sun and sheltered from the north. 
The ants were heaped together in great numbers, and 
seemed to enjoy the temperature which they experienced 
at the surface of the nest. None of them were working : 
this multitude of accumulated insects exhibited the ap- 
pearance of a boiling fluid, upon which at first the eye 
could scarce fix itself without difficulty. But when I 
set myself to follow each ant separately, I saw them ap- 
proach each other, moving their antennze with astonish- 
ing rapidity; with their fore-feet they patted lightly the 
cheeks of other ants: after these first gestures, which re- 
sembled caresses, they reared upon their hind-legs by 
pairs, they wrestled together, they seized one another by 
a mandible, by a leg or an antenna, they then let go 
their hold to renew the attack; they fixed themselves to 
each other’s trunk or abdomen, they embraced, they 
* Gould, 103-- > Bonnet, ii. 407. 
