AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 209» 
to produce its necessary supply of future females, males, and workers, 
which, according to Gould, are laid at three different seasons.’ This is- 
the ordinary duty assigned to them by Providence. Yet at the first for- 
mation of a nest, the female acts the kind part, and performs all the 
maternal offices which I have just described as peculiar to the workers ;. 
and it is only when these become sufficiently numerous to relieve her,. 
that she resigns this charge and devotes herself exclusively to oviposi- 
tion.? 
There is one circumstance occurring at this period of their history 
which affords a very affecting example of the self-denial and self-devotion 
of these admirable creatures. If you have paid any attention to what is 
going forward in an ant hill, you will have observed some larger than the 
rest, which at first sight appear, as well as the workers, to have no wings,. 
but which upon a closer examination exhibit a small portion of their base,. 
or the sockets in which they were inserted. These are females that have 
cast their wings, not accidentally but by a voluntary act. When an ant 
of this sex first emerges from the pupa, she is adorned with two pairs of 
wings, the upper or outer pair being larger than her body. With these, 
when a virgin, she is enabled to traverse the fields of ether, surrounded by 
myriads of the other sex, who are candidates for her favour. But when 
once connubial rites are celebrated, the unhappy husband dies, and the 
widowed bride seeks only how she may provide for their mutual offspring. 
Panting no more to join the choir of aérial dancers, her only thought 
is to construct a subterranean abode in which she may deposit and 
attend to her eggs, and cherish her embryo young till, having passed 
through their various changes, they arrive at their perfect state, and she 
can devolve upon them a portion of her maternal cares. Her ample wings, 
which before were her chief ornament and the instruments of her pleasure, 
are now an encumbrance which incommode her in the fulfilment of the 
great duty uppermost in her mind; she therefore, without a moment’s 
hesitation, plucks them from her shoulders. Might we not then address 
females who have families, in words like those of Solomon, “ Go to the 
ant, ye mothers ; consider her ways, and be wise ?” 
M. P. Huber was more than once witness to this proceeding. He saw 
one female stretch her wings with a strong effort so as to bring them before 
her head — she then crossed them in all directions —next she reversed 
them alternately on each side —at last, in consequence of some violent 
contortions, the four wings fell at the same moment in his presence. 
rnc in addition to these motions, used her legs to assist in the 
work, 
Thus, from the very moment of the extrusion of the egg to the maturity 
of the perfect insect, are the ants unremittingly occupied in the care of the 
young of the society, and that with an ardour of affectionate attachment 
to which, when its intensity and duration are taken into the account, we 
may fairly say there is nothing parallel in the whole animal world.* Amongst 
1p. 85. 2 Huber, 110. 
5 Huber, 109. —Gould had, long before Huber, observed that the female ants cast 
their wings, pp. 59. 62. 64. I have frequently observed them, sometimes with only 
one wing, at others with only fragments of the wings; and again, at others they 
were so completely pulled off, that it could not be known that they formerly had 
them, only by the sockets in which they were inserted, 
4 Huber, 93, 
P 
