PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 329 
« My readers,” says he, “will perhaps be tempted to believe that I have 
suffered myself to be carried away by the love of the marvellous, and that, 
in order to impart greater interest to my narration, I have given way to an 
inclination to embellish the facts that I have observed. But the more the 
wonders of nature have attractions for me, the less do I feel inclined to 
alter them by a mixture of the reyeries of imagination. J have sought to 
divest myself of every illusion and prejudice, of the ambition of saying new 
things, of the prepossessions often attached to perceptions too rapid, the 
love of system, and the like. And I haye endeavoured to keep myself, if 
I may so say, in a disposition of mind perfectly neuter, and ready to admit 
all facts, of whatever nature they might be, that patient observation should 
confirm. Amongst the persons whom I have taken as witnesses to the 
discovery of mixed ant-hills, I can cite a distinguished philosopher (Prof. 
Jurine), who was desirous of verifying their existence by examining himself 
the two species united.’’? 
He afterwards appeals to nature, and calls upon all who doubt it to 
repeat his experiments, which he is sure will soon satisfy them, —a satis~ 
faction which, as I have just observed, in this country we cannot receive, 
for want of the slave-making species. And now to begin my history. 
There are two species of ants which engage in these excursions, 
Polyergus rufescens and Formica sanguinea; but they do not, like the 
African kings, make slaves of adults, their sole object being to carry off 
the helpless infants of the colony which they attack, the larvee and pupz ; 
these they educate in their own nests till they arrive at their perfect state, 
when they undertake all the business of the society.* In the following 
account I shall chiefly confine myself to what Huber relates of the first 
of these species, and conclude my extracts with his history of an expedition 
of the latter to procure slaves. 
The rufescent ants? do not leave their nests to go upon these expeditions, 
which last about ten weeks, till the males are ready to emerge into the 
perfect state ; and it is very remarkable, that if any individuals attempt to 
stray abroad earlier, they are detained by their slaves, who will not suffer 
them to proceed :—a wonderful provision of the Creator to prevent the 
black colonies from being pillaged when they contain only mate and female 
brood, which would be their total destruction, without being any benefit 
to their assailants, to whom neuters alone are useful. 
Their time of sallying forth is from two in the afternoon till five, but 
More generally a little before five; the weather, however, must be fine, 
and the thermometer must stand at above 36° in the shade. Previously 
to marching there is reason to think that they send out scouts to explore 
the vicinity ; upon whose return they emerge from their subterranean city, 
1 Huber, 287. Jurine, Hyménoptéres, 273. 
2 It is not clear that our Willughby had not some knowledge of this extraordi- 
nary fact; for in his description of ants, speaking of their care of their pup, he 
says, “that they also carry the aurelie of others into their nests, as if they were their 
own.” (Rai. Hist. Ins. 69.) Gould remarks concerning the hill-ant, “This species 
is very rapacious after the vermicles and nymphs of other ants. If you place a parcel 
before or near their colonies, they will, with remarkable greediness, seize and carry 
them off.” 91, note*. Query—Do they do this to devour them, or educate them? 
White made the same observation (Wat. Hist. ii, 278). 
3 This species forms a kind of link which connects Latreille’s two genera Formica 
and Myrmica, borrowing the abdominal squama from the former, and the sting 
from the latter. 
