330 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
directing their course to the quarter from which the scouts came. The 
have various preparatory signals, such as pushing each other with the 
mandibles or forehead, or playing with the antenne; the object of which 
is probably to excite their martial ardour, to give the word for marching, 
or to indicate the route they are to take, The advanced guard usually 
consists of eight or ten ants, but no sooner do these get beyond the rest 
than they move back, wheeling round in a semicircle, and mixing with the 
main body, while others succeed to their station. 'They have “no captain, 
overseer, or ruler,” as Solomon observes, their army being composed 
entirely of neuters, without a single female: thus all in their turns take 
their place at the head, and then, retreating towards the rear, make room 
for others: This is the usual order of their march; and the object of it 
may be to communicate intelligence more readily from one part of the 
column to another. 
When winding through the grass of a meadow they have proceeded to 
thirty feet or more from their own habitation, they disperse: and, like 
dogs with their noses, explore the ground with their antenne to detect the 
traces of the game they are pursuing. The negro formicary, the object of 
their search, is soon discovered; some of the inhabitants are usually 
Keeping guard at the avenues, which dart upon the foremost of their 
assailants with inconceivable fury. The alarm increasing, crowds of its 
swarthy inhabitants rush forth from every apartment; but their valour is 
exerted in vain ; for the besiegers, precipitating themselves upon them, by 
the ardour of their attack compel them to retreat within, and seek shelter 
in the lowest story; great numbers entering with them at the gates, while 
others with their mandibles make a breach in the walls, through which the 
Victorious army marches into the besieged city. In a few minutes, by the 
same passages, they as hastily evacuate it, each carrying off in its mouth a 
larva or pupa which it has seized in spite of its unhappy guardians, On 
their return home with their spoil, they pursue exactly the route by which 
they went to the attack. Their success on these expeditions is rather the 
result of their impetuosity, by which they damp the courage of the negroes, 
than of their superior strength, though they are a larger animal ; for some- 
times a very small body of them, not more than 150, has been known to 
succeed in their attack and to carry off their booty.1 
' Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have met with fresh 
confirmation of the extraordinary history here related. Having been induced to 
visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so justly celebrated as one of the first 
entomologists of the age, and to whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly 
attentions which he paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he 
assured me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. THe has 
also said the same in his Considérations nouvelles et générales sur les Insects vivant en 
Société, (Mém, du Mus, iii. 407.) At the same time he informed me that there was 
a nest of the rufescent ants in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards 
was so good as to accompany me. We went on the 26th of J une, 1817, ‘The day 
was excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we began our 
search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion. In a minute or two, 
however, my friend directed my attention to one individual—two or three more 
next appeared —and soon a numerous army was to be seen winding through the 
long grass of a low ridge in which was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the 
wood from Paris, on the right hand and near the road, is a bare place, paled in for 
the Sunday amusement of the lower orders —to this the ants directed their march, 
and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed it rapidly and with 
great apparent eagerness; all the while exploring the ground with their antenna, 
