PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



69 



will say is a serious addition to the ordinary occupations of 

 their own colonies : but when you consider the greater division 

 of labour in these mixed societies, which sometimes unite both 

 negroes and miners in the same dwelling, so that three distinct 

 races live together, from their vast numbers so far exceeding 

 those of the native nest, you will not think this too severe 

 employment for so industrious an animal. 



But you will here ask, perhaps — "Do the masters take no 

 part in these domestic employments ? At least, surely, they 

 direct their slaves, and see that they keep to their work ? " — 

 No such thing, I assure you — the sole motive for their preda- 

 tory excursions seems to be mere laziness and hatred of labour. 

 Active and intrepid as they are in the field, at all other times 

 they are the most helpless animals that can be imagined; — 

 unwilling to feed themselves, or even to walk, their indolence 

 exceeds that of the sloth itself. So entirely dependent, indeed, 

 are they upon their negroes for every thing, that upon some 

 occasions the latter seem to be the masters, and exercise a kind 

 of authority over them. They will not suffer them, for instance, 

 to go out before the proper season, or alone ; and if they 

 return from their excursions without their usual booty, they 

 give them a very indifferent reception, showing their displea- 

 sure (which, however, soon ceases) by attacking them ; and 

 when they attempt to enter the nest, dragging them out. To 

 ascertain what they would do when obliged to trust to their 

 own exertions, Huber shut up thirty of the rufescent ants in 

 a glazed box, supplying them with larva? and pupa? of their 

 own kind, with the addition of several negro pupa?, excluding 

 very carefully all their slaves, and placing some honey in a 

 corner of their prison. Incredible as it may seem, they made 

 no attempt to feed themselves : and though at first they paid 

 some attention to their larva?, carrying them here and there, 

 as if too great a charge they soon laid them down again; 

 most of them died of hunger in less than two days, and the 

 few that remained alive appeared extremely weak and languid. 

 At length, commiserating their condition, he admitted a single 

 negro ; and this little active creature by itself re-established 

 order — made a cell in the earth; collected the larva? and 

 placed them in it ; assisted the pupa? that were ready to be 



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