AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 311 



paths and winding labyrinths of the common habitation ^ ; 

 and when the males and females at length take flight, these 

 affectionate stepmothers accompany them, mounting with 

 them to the summit of the highest herbs, showing the most 

 tender solicitude for them (some even endeavour to retain 

 them), feeding them for the last time, caressing them ; and at 

 length, when they rise into the air and disappear, seeming to 

 linger for some seconds over the footsteps of these favoured 

 beings, of whom they have taken such exemplary care, and 

 whom they will never behold again, ^ 



In the above account, exclusive of the bare fact of their 

 laying the eggs, no mention is made of the female ants, the 

 real parents of the republic. You are not from this to sup- 

 pose that they never feel the influence of this divine principle 

 of love for their oflspring. When, indeed, a colony is es- 

 tablished and peopled, they have enough to do to furnish it 

 with eggs to produce its necessary supply of future females, 

 males, and workers, which, according to Gould, are laid at 

 three diflferent seasons.^ This is the ordinary duty assigned 

 to them by Providence. Yet, at the first formation of a nest, 

 the female acts the kind part, and performs all the maternal 

 offices which I have just described as peculiar to the workers ; 

 and it is only when these become sufficiently numerous to re- 

 lieve her, that she resigns this charge and devotes herself ex- 

 clusively to oviposition.* 



There is one circumstance occurring at this period of their 

 history which affords a very affecting example of the self- 

 denial and self-devotion of these admirable creatures. If you 

 have paid any attention to what is going forward in an ant- 

 hill, you will have observed some larger than the rest, which 

 at first sight appear, as well as the workers, to have no wings, 

 but which upon a closer examination exhibit a small portion 

 of their base, or the sockets in which they were inserted. 

 These are females that have cast their wings, not accidentally 

 but by a voluntary act. When an ant of this sex first emerges 

 from the pupa, she is adorned with two pairs of wings, the 

 upper or outer pair being larger than her body. With these, 



1 Huber, 83. 2 ibid. 93. 3 p. 35. 4 Ruber, 110. 



X 4 



