206 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 
One circumstance must be premised with regard to the education of the 
young of most of those insects which live in society, truly extraordinary, 
and without parallel in any other department of nature ; namely, that this 
office, except under particular circumstances, is not undertaken by the 
female which has given birth to them, but by the workers, or neuters, as 
they are sometimes called, which, though bound to the offspring. of the 
common mother of the society by no other than fraternal ties, exhibit to- 
wards them all the marks of the most ardent parental affection, building 
habitations for their use, feeding them, and tending them with incessant 
solicitude, and willingly sacrificing their lives in defence of the precious 
charge. Thus sterility itself is made an instrument of the preservation and 
multiplication of species ; and females too fruitful to educate all their 
young are indulged by Providence with a privilege without which nine 
tenths of their progeny must perish. 
The most determined despiser of insects and their concerns—he who 
never deigned to open his eyes to any other part of their economy —must 
yet have observed, even in spite of himself, the remarkable attachment 
which the inhabitants of a disturbed nest of ants manifest towards certain 
small white oblong bodies with which it is usually stored. He must have 
perceived that the ants are much less intently occupied with providing for 
their own safety, than in carrying off these little bodies to a place of 
security. To effect this purpose the whole community is in motion, and 
no danger can divert them from attempting its accomplishment. An 
observer having cut an ant in two, the poor mutilated animal did not relax 
in its affectionate exertions. With that half of the body to which the head 
remained attached it contrived previously to expiring to carry off ten of 
these white masses into the interior of the nest! You will readily divine 
that these attractive objects are the young of the ants in one of the first 
or imperfect states. They are, in fact, not the eggs, as they are vulgarly 
called, but the pups, which the working ants tend with the most patient 
assiduity. But I must give you a, more detailed account of their opera- 
tions, beginning with the actual eggs. 
These, which are so small as to be searcely visible to the naked eye, as 
soon as deposited by the queen ant, who drops them at random in her 
progress through the nest, are taken charge of by the workers, who im- 
mediately seize them and carry them in their mouths, in small parcels, 
incessantly turning them backwards and forwards with their tongue for the 
purpose of moistening them, without which they would come to nothing. 
They then lay them in heaps, which they place in separate apartments}, 
and constantly tend until hatched into larvee ; frequently in the course of 
the day removing them from one quarter of the nest to another, as they 
require a warmer orcooler, a moister or drier atmosphere ; and at intervals 
broodmg over them as if to impart a genial warmth.? Experiments have 
been made to ascertain whether these assiduous nurses could distinguish 
their eggs if intermixed with particles of salt and sugar, which, to an ordi- 
nary observer, they very much resemble; but the result was constantly 
in favour of the sagacity of the ants. They invariably selected the eggs 
fon whatever materials they were mixed with, and re-arranged them as 
ore. 
1 Huber, 69, 2 De Geer, ii, 1099, 8 Gould, 87. 
