AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 307 



the precious charge. Thus sterility itself is made an instru- 

 ment of the preservation and multiplication of species ; and 

 females too fruitful to educate all their young are indulged 

 by Providence with a privilege without which nine tenths of 

 their progeny must perish. 



The most determined despiser of insects and their concerns 

 — he who never deigned to open his eyes to any other part 

 of their economy — must yet have observed, even in spite of 

 himself, the remarkable attachment which the inhabitants of 

 a disturbed nest of ants manifest towards certain small white 

 oblong bodies with which it is usually stored. He must 

 have perceived that the ants are much less intently occupied 

 with providing for their own safety, than in carrying off 

 these little bodies to a place of security. To effect this pur- 

 pose the whole community is in motion, and no danger can 

 divert them from attempting its accomplishment. An ob- 

 server having cut an ant in two, the poor mutilated animal 

 did not relax in its affectionate exertions. With that half of 

 the body to which the head remained attached it contrived 

 previously to expiring to carry off ten of these white masses 

 into the interior of the nest ! You will readily divine that 

 these attractive objects are the young of the ants in one of 

 the first or imperfect states. They are, in fact, not the eggs, 

 as they are vulgarly called, but the pupae, which the working 

 ants tend with the most patient assiduity. But I must give 

 you a more detailed account of their operations, beginning 

 with the actual eggs. 



These, which are so small as to be scarcely visible to the 

 naked eye, as soon as deposited by the queen ant, who drops 

 them at random in her progress through the nest, are taken 

 charge of by the workers, who immediately seize them and 

 carry them in their mouths, in small parcels, incessantly 

 turning them backwards and forwards with their tongue for 

 the purpose of moistening them, without which they would 

 come to nothing. They then lay them in heaps, which they 

 place in separate apartments ^ and constantly tend until 

 hatched into larvse ; frequently in the course of the day re- 



' Huber, 69. 



X 2 



