338 



that's it; 



confine our remarks to the nar- 

 rowest limits of general facts in 

 reference to the class or generic 

 order of this singular creature. 



The males and femrles of the ant tribe are 

 possessed of wings up to a certain period of 

 their existence ; but the neuters, which we 

 have already said am females, but incapable of 

 reproduction, are destitute of wings. For the 

 first brief period of their existence the males 

 and females are found about and in front of 

 their homes or colonies, but only so long as 

 their wings are in process of growth and de- 

 velopment ; as soon as that epoch is reached, 

 they rise into the air, and, like the ordinary fly, 

 engender in their flight. As soon as this stage 

 or the sexual season is passed, the male withers 

 and dies, and the female, coming to the ground 

 by the aid of her feet, cuts off her wings, and, 

 like provident mothers, prepares for the great 

 purpose of her life — the birth or deposition 

 of her eggs. If, as often happens, the female 

 is not disposed to give up the enjoyments of 

 life, and the luxury of floating in the sunbeams 

 upon the immediate death of her husband, and 

 feels disposed to enjoy the felicity of existence 

 a little longer, the moment she alights for rest 

 or to trim her plumage, a host of cruel and 

 inexorable eunuchs, or the neuters, seize and 

 forcibly drag her to the gloomy receptacle of 

 the ant-hill, and forced into one of the cells, she 

 is made to cut off her wings ; and for fear her 

 truant mind might yet lead her to stray, 

 closely watched till she has laid her eggs, when, 

 having performed all she can do for the general 

 good and economy of the state, she is taken 

 forcibly to the door of the national hive, and 

 thrust forth to perish. 



The males are much smaller in every respect 

 but the eyes, which are larger than those of 

 the females. The neuters have neither wings 

 nor smooth eyes, but larger heads, stronger 

 jaws, and a more knotted corslet than either 

 the male or female. These female eunuchs, the 

 neuters, if they maybe so called, are the slaves, 

 servants, and nurses of the whole community ; 

 they are in fact the universal labourers of the 

 state, politically and domestically. They exca- 

 vate the galleries, raise the structure of the nation, 

 are the Board of Works and the engineers of the 

 community, procure food by foraging and cutting 

 out expeditions on the farmer, garner their 

 purloined harvest, keep all the accesses and 

 exits of the national home clean ; and more 

 than all, the foremost duty of their creation, 

 assiduously wait on the larvae, the infant young, 

 feed them with a food they have first digested 

 in their own stomachs, pay every attention to 

 their wants as they grow^ and at the fitting 

 time rip up the capsule in which they are con- 

 tained, and set the infant ant free ; attend upor 

 it, encourage it, and do all the offices of a 

 mother, till the insect is fit to enter the com- 

 munity, take its part in the bustling world, 

 and is capable of performing its share in the 

 marvellous economy of its tribe ; indeed, so 

 beautifully assiduous are these neuters in the 

 execution of their maternal duties, that on the 

 first glimmer of sunshine each one may be 

 seen carrying its youthful charge, laying it 



tenderly in the sun, and on the first appearance 

 of cloud or dam]), hurrying off with its embryo 

 to the warmer security of its cell ; and the 

 solicitude they display in not allowing the 

 insect to go forth till its wings are fully de- 

 veloped, and then showing it the best way to 

 go out, is equally as wonderful to consider as it 

 is beautiful to contemplate. Each variety of 

 the ant tribe has a special and peculiar way of 

 constructing its colonial or national dwelling. 

 Some excavate the earth and burrow under the 

 ground ; others raise little mounds, known in 

 this country as ant-hills ; while in hot climates 

 and the tropics they erect conical mounds of 

 several feet high ; ' others raise cylindrical 

 columns, on which they set a coving, mush- 

 room-shaped roof, giving from a distance the 

 appearance of an Indian or aborigines' village, 

 for the ant lives in vast communTTies, many 

 separate tribes of the same family dwelling in 

 one spot, 1147 These nests or hives, whedier 



1147. 



above or below ground, have all a sour, pecu- 

 liarly vinegar-like smell, which proceeds from 

 a secretion of the insect, which has been dis- 

 covered to be acetic acid ; or, as it has been 

 called from the Latin name of the species, the 

 formic, or acid of ants. 



There are two characteristics of the ant 

 which are especially worthy of record ; the 

 one is the fact that one species of ant will 

 attack another for the express purpose of 

 carrying off the young of their antagonists, 

 and making slaves of them. Thus, when the 

 Red or Amazon ant is in want of labourers, 

 it will issue forth in dense numbers, attack 

 another species, overbear all opposition, storm 

 the national hive, and, seizing on the embryo, 

 carry off thousands of the young to their own 

 nests, where, having previously made prisoners 

 of a number of neuters, they intrust their 

 : spoil to their rearing, till the young are old 

 ' enough to perform the duties for which they 

 stole them, and replenish the state. The other 

 singular phenomenon is what is called the cow 

 ant, a very small insect, the aphides, or vine- 

 fretters, a minute species of the ant tribe, that 

 exudes from the extremity of its body a drop 

 of viscid syrup something resembling honey 

 and of which the ordinary ant is especially 

 fond, forming indeed his most luxurious repast, 

 but requiring this enjoyment more frequently 

 than the aphide throws it out. The ant, with 



