PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



71 



place of the greatest security. Sometimes even the refuscents 

 rouse themselves from the torpor that usually benumbs them. 

 In one instance, when they wished to emigrate from their own 

 to a deserted nest, they reversed what usually takes place on 

 such occasions, and carried all their negroes themselves to the 

 spot they had chosen. At the first foundation also of their 

 societies by impregnated females, there is good reason for 

 thinking, that, like those of other species, they take upon 

 themselves the whole charge of the nascent colony. I must 

 not here omit a most extraordinary anecdote related by M. 

 Huber. He put into one of his artificial formicaries pupse of 

 both species of the slave-collecting ants, which, under the 

 care of some negroes introduced with them, arrived at their 

 imago state, and lived together under the same roof in the 

 most perfect amity. 



These facts show what effects education will produce even 

 upon insects ; that it will impart to them a new bias, and 

 modify in some respects their usual instincts, rendering them 

 familiar with objects which, had they been educated at home, 

 they would have feared, and causing them to love those whom 

 in that case they would have abhorred. — It occasions, how- 

 ever, no further change in their character, since the master 

 and slave, brought up with the same care and under the same 

 superintendence, are associated in the mixed formicary under 

 laws entirely opposite. 1 



Unparalleled and unique in the animal kingdom as this his- 

 tory may appear, you will scarcely deem the next I have to 

 relate less singular and less worthy of admiration. That ants 

 should have their milch cattle is as extraordinary as that they 

 should have slaves. Here, perhaps, you may again feel a fit 

 of incredulity shake you ; — but the evidence for the fact I am 

 now stating being abundant and satisfactory, I flatter myself 

 it will not shake you long. 



1 See Huber, chap, vii — xi. Mixed societies, similar to the above described, 

 have been observed amongst exotic ants by M. Lund, who mentions a species of 

 Myrmica ( M. paleata) found in Brazil, whose nest contains the neuters (doubtless 

 employed as slaves, though unfortunately M. Lund had not an opportunity of 

 observing the excursions in which the pupa? they sprung from were captured) 

 of a neighbouring species, M. erythrothorax. (Lacordaire, Introd. a V Entorn. ii. 

 503.) 



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