PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



67 



cours ; small brigades kept frequently arriving to reinforce 

 them, which emboldened them to approach nearer to the city 

 they had blockaded ; upon this their anxiety to send couriers 

 to their own nest seemed to increase ; these spreading a 

 general alarm, a large re-inforcement immediately set out to 

 join the besieging army ; yet even then they did not begin 

 the battle. Almost all the negroes, coming out of their for- 

 tress, formed themselves in a body about two feet square in 

 front of it, and there expected the enemy. Frequent skir- 

 mishes were the prelude to the main conflict, which was 

 begun by the negroes. Long before success appeared dubious 

 they carried off their pupaa, and heaped them up at the entrance 

 to their nest, on the side opposite to that on which the enemy 

 approached. The young females also fled to the same quarter. 

 The sanguine ants at length rush upon the negroes, and at- 

 tacking them on all sides, after a stout resistance the latter, 

 renouncing all defence, endeavour to make off to a distance 

 with the pupae they have heaped up : — the host of assailants 

 pursues, and strives to force from them these objects of their 

 care. Many also enter the formicary, and begin to carry off 

 the young brood that are left in it. A continued chain of 

 ants engaged in this employment extends from nest to nest, 

 and the day and part of the night pass before all is finished. 

 A garrison being left in the captured city, on the following 

 morning the business of transporting the brood is renewed. 

 It often happens (for this species of ant loves to change its 

 habitation) that the conquerors emigrate with all their family 

 to the acquisition which their valour has gained. All the 

 incursions of F. sanguinea take place in the space of a month, 

 and they make only five or six in the year. They will some- 

 times travel 150 paces to attack a negro colony. 



After reading this account of expeditions undertaken by 

 ants for so extraordinary a purpose, you will be curious to 

 know how the slaves are treated in the nests of these 

 marauders — whether they live happily, or labour under an 

 oppressive yoke. You must recollect that they are not car- 

 ried off, like our negroes, at an age when the amor patrice 

 and all the charities of life which bind them to their country, 

 kindred, and friends, are in their full strength, but in what 



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