PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 313 
tive Termites: —TI shall next introduce you to social insects, concerning 
most of which you have probably conceived a more favourable opinion — 
I mean those which constitute the second class of perfect societies, whose 
workers are not larva, but neuters. These all belong to the Hymenoplera 
order of Linné :—there are four kinds of insects in this order (which 
you will find ag fertile in the instructors of mankind, as you have seen it 
to be in our benefactors), that, varying considerably from each other in 
their proceedings as social animals, separately merit your attention ; 
namely, ants, wasps, and hornets, humble-bees, and the hive-bee. I begin 
with the first, 
Full of interesting traits as are the history and economy of the white 
ants, and however earnestly they may induce you to wish you could be a 
spectator of them, yet they scarcely exceed those of an industrious tribe 
of insects which are constantly passing under our eye. ‘The ant has 
attracted universal notice, and been celebrated from the earliest ages, both 
by sacred and profane writers, as a pattern of prudence, foresight, wisdom, 
and diligence. Upon Solomon’s testimony in their favour I have en- 
larged before ; and for those of other ancient writers, I must refer you to 
the learned Bochart, who has collected them in his Hierozoicon. : 
In reading what the ancients say on this subject, we must be careful, 
however, to separate truth from error, or we shall attribute much more to 
ants than of right belongs to them. Who does not smile when he reads 
of ants that emulate the wolf in size, the dog in shape, the lion in its feet, 
and the leopard in its skin — ants, whose employment is to mine for gold, 
and from whose vengeance the furtive Indian is constrained to fly on the 
swift camel’s back?* But when we find the writers of all nations and 
ages unite in affirming, that, having deprived it of the power of vegetating, 
ants store up grainin their nests, we feel disposed to give larger credit to an 
assertion, which, at first sight, seems to savour more of fact than of fable, 
and does not attribute more sagacity and foresight to these insects than in 
other instances they are found to possess. Writers in general, therefore, 
who have considered this subject, and some even of very late date, have 
taken it for granted that the ancients were correct in this notion. But 
when observers of nature began to examine the manners and economy of 
these creatures more narrowly, it was found, at least with respect to the 
European species of ants, that no such hordes of grain were made by them, 
and, in fact, that they had no magazines in their nests in which provisions 
of any kind were stored up. It was therefore surmised that the ancients, 
observing them carry about their pupe, which, in shape, size, and colour, 
not a little resemble a grain of corn, and the ends of which they sometimes 
pull open to let out the enclosed insect, mistook the one for the other, 
and this action for depriving the grain of the corculum. Mr. Gould, our 
countryman, was one of the first historians of the ant who discovered that 
they did not store up corn; and since his time naturalists have generally 
subscribed to that opinion, 
Till the manners of exotic ants are more accurately explored, it would, 
however, be rash to affirm that no ants have magazines of provisions; for 
although, during the cold of the winters in this country, they remain in a 
State of torpidity, and have no need of food, yet in warmer regions, during 
the rainy seasons, when they are probably confined to their nests, a store 
1 Bochart, Hierozoic. ii. 1, iv, c. 22. 
