316 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
—which your partiality to your friend may, perhaps, induce you to think 
not wholly devoid of interest — that it has been my fortune to make. 
The societies of ants, as also of other Hymenoptera, differ from those of 
the Termites in having inactive larvae and pup, the neuters or workers 
combining in themselves both the military and civil functions. Besides the 
helpless larvae and pupz which have no locomotive powers, these societies 
consist of females, males, and workers. The office of the females, at their 
first exclusion distinguished by a pair of ample wings (which, however, as 
you have heard, they soon cast), is the foundation of new colonies, and the 
furnishing of a constant supply of eggs for the maintenance of the popula- 
tion in the old nests as well as in the new. These are usually the least 
numerous part of the community.! The office of the males, which are also 
winged, and at the time of swarming are extremely numerous, is merely 
the impregnation of the females : after the season for this is past, they die, 
Upon the workers? devolves, except in nascent colonies, all the work, as 
well as the defence of the community, of which they are the most nume- 
rous portion. In some societies of ants the workers are of two dimensions, 
Tn the nests of F. rufa and flava such were observed by Gould, the size of 
one exceeding that of the other about one-third.® (In my specimens, the 
large workers of F. rufa are nearly three times, and of 7. flava, twice, the 
size of the small ones.) All were equally engaged in the labours of the 
colony. Large workers were also noticed by M. P. Huber in the nests of 
Polyergus rufescens*, but he could not ascertain their office. More light, 
however, has been of late thrown on this subject by the observations 
of M. Lacordaire and M. Lund upon these large workers, as they occur in 
the nests of South American ants. They have ascertained them to be 
strictly the soldiers, which, though of a different origin, like those of the 
Termites before described, have it expressly in charge to defend the 
rest of the community ; for which office their size—full twice that of 
the other workers—and their immense heads and jaws in proportion, ad- 
mirably adapt them. M, Lacordaire informs us that, both in Cayenne and 
Brazil, he has been a thousand times witness of the accuracy of the facts 
stated by M. Lund as to the military office of these large and big-headed 
workers of Atta cephalotes, and allied species, during the marches and ex- 
cursions undertaken by the society. They never mix themselves with the 
mass of the moving columns ; but, stationed on their flanks, they are seen 
sometimes to march forward; then to return and halt a moment, as if to 
1 Gould says that the males and females are nearly equal in number (p. 62.); 
ut from Huber’s observations it seems to follow that the former are most numerous 
4 That the neuter ants, like those of the hive-bee, are imperfectly organised 
females, appears from the following observation of M. Huber (Nouv. Observ. &e. 
ii. 443.) —“ Les fourmis nous ont encore offert & cet égard une analogie tres- 
frappante; 4 la vérité, nous n’avons jamais vu pondre les ouvriéres, mais nous avons 
été témoins de leur accouplement. Ce fait pourroit étre attesté par plusieurs 
membres de la Société d’Histoire Naturelle de Cases, i qui nous l’ayons fait voir; 
Vapproche du mille étoit toujours suivie de la mort de Vouvritve; leur conformation 
ne permet done pas qu’elles deviennent méres, mais V’instinct du male prouve, du 
moins que ce sont des femelles.” 
5 Gould, 103. 
4 M. Huber calls this an apterous female; yet he could not discover that they 
laid eggs; and he owns that they more nearly resemble the workers than the 
females, and that he should have considered them as such, had he seen them mix 
with them in their excursions. — Huber, p. 251. 
