300 IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
Ts the monarch then chosen by his peers when they first leave the egg and 
emerge from their subterranean cayerns ? or haye larva, pupa, and imago 
each their separate king? The account given us in Scripture is certainly 
much the most probable, that the locusts haye no king, though they ob- 
serve as much order and regularity in their movements as if they were 
under military discipline, and had a ruler over them.1 Some species of 
ants, as we learn from the admirable history of them by M. P. Huber, 
though they go forth by common consent upon their military expeditions, 
yet the order of their columns keeps perpetually changing ; so that those 
who lead the van at the first setting out soon fall into the rear, and 
others take their place: their successors do the same; and such is the 
constant order of their march. It seems probable, as these columns are 
extended to a considerable length, that the object of this successive change 
of leaders is to convey constant intelligence to those in the rear of what 
is going forward in the van. Whether anything like this takes place for 
the regulation of their motions in the innumerable locust-armies, which are 
sometimes co-extensive with vast kingdoms; or whether their instinct 
simply directs them to follow the first that moves or flies, and to keep 
their measured distance, so that, as the prophet speaks, “one does not 
thrust another, and they walk every one in his path’,” must be left to fu- 
ture naturalists to ascertain. And I think that you will join with me in 
the wish that travellers, who haye a taste for Natural History, and some 
knowledge of insects, would devote a share of attention to the proceedings 
of these celebrated animals, so that we might have facts instead of fables. 
The last order of imperfect associations approaches nearer to perfect 
societies, and is that of those insects which the social principle urges to 
unite in some common work for the benefit of the community. 
Amongst the Coleoptera, Ateuchus pilularius, a beetle before mentioned, 
acts under the influence of this principle. “I have attentively admired 
their industry and mutual assisting of each other,” says Catesby, “in 
rolling those globular balls from the place where they made them to that 
of their interment, which is usually the distance of some yards, more or 
less. This they perform breech foremost, by raising their hind parts, 
forcing along the ball with their hind feet. “Two or three of them are 
sometimes engaged in trundling one ball, which, from meeting with im- 
pediments from the unevenness of the ground, is sometimes deserted by 
them ; it is, however, attempted by others with success, unless it happens 
to roll into some deep hollow chink, where they are constrained to leave 
it ; but they continue their work by rolling off the next ball that comes in 
their way. None of them seem to know their own balls,-but an equal 
care for the whole appears to affect all the community,”$ 
Many larvee also of Lepidoptera associate with this view, some of 
which ave social only during part of their existence, and others during 
the whole of it. The first of these continue together, while their united 
Jabours are beneficial to them ; but when they reach a certain period of 
their life, they disperse and become solitary. Of this kind are the cater- 
piss of a little butterfly (Melitea Cinvia) which devour the narrow- 
caved plantain. The families of these, usually amounting to about a 
hundred, unite to form a pyramidal silken tent, containing several apart- 
1 Proverbs, xxx. 27. 2 Joel, ii. 8, 
3 Catesby’s Carolina, ii, 111, 
