PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



65 



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 sometimes 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 



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 in- 

 duced 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. He has also said the same in his Considerations nouvelles et generates 

 sur les Inseetes vivant en Societe. ( M£m. du Mus. iii. 407. ) At the same time he in- 

 formed 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 

 25th of June, 18] 7. 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 di- 

 rected 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 

 antennas, as beagles with their noses, evidently as if in pursuit of game. Those 

 in the van, as Huber also observed, kept perpetually falling back into the main 

 body. When they had passed this inclo&ure, they appeared for some time to be 

 at a loss, making no progress, but only coursing about : but after a few minutes' 

 delay, as if they had received some intelligence, they resumed their march and 

 soon arrived at a negro nest, which they entered by one or two apertures. We 

 could not observe that any negroes were expecting their attack outside the nest, 

 but in a short time a few came out at another opening, and seemed to be making 

 their escape. Perhaps some conflict might have taken place within the nest, in 

 the interval between the appearance of these negroes and the entry of their as- 

 sailants. However this might be, in a few minutes one of the latter made its ap- 

 pearance with a pupa in its mouth ; it was followed by three or four more ; and 

 soon the whole army began to emerge as fast as it could, almost every individual 

 carrying its burthen. Most that I observed seemed to have pupae. I then 

 traced the expedition back to the spot from which I first saw them set out, which 

 according to my steps was about 156 feet from the negro formicary. The whole 

 business was transacted in little more than an hour. Though I could trace the 

 ants back to a certain spot in the ridge before mentioned, where they first ap- 

 peared in the long grass, I did not succeed in finding the entrance to their nest, 

 so that I was deprived of the pleasure of seeing the mixed society. As we 

 dined at an auberge close to the spot, I proposed renewing my researches after 

 dinner ; but a violent tempest of thunder and rain, though I attempted it, pre- 

 vented my succeeding; and afterwards I had no opportunity of revisiting the 

 place. 



M. Latreille very justly observes that it is physically impossible for the 

 rufescent ants (Polyergus rufescens), on account of the form of their jaws and the 

 accessory parts of their mouth, either to prepare habitations for their family, to 

 procure food, or to feed them. — Considerations nouvelles, &c, p. 408. 

 VOL. II. F 



