292 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 
aphides which fell in these parts. They who were walking the 
streets at that time found themselves covered with these insects, 
which settled also on the trees and gardens, and blackened all 
the vegetables where they alighted. These armies, no doubt, 
were then in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters, 
and might perhaps come from the great hop plantations of Kent 
or Sussex, the wind being that day at North. They were ob- 
served at the same time at Farnham, and all along the vale to 
Alton. 
ANTS. 
August, 23. Every ant-hill about this time is in a strange 
hurry and confusion ; and all the winged ants, agitated by some 
violent impulse, are leaving their homes, and, bent on emigra- 
tion, swarm by myriads in the air, to the great emolument of 
the hirundines, which fare luxuriously. Those that escape the 
swallows return no more to their nests, but looking out for fresh 
settlements, lay a foundation for future colonies. All the females 
at this time are pregnant : the males that escape being eaten, 
wander away and die. 
October 2. Flying ants, male and female, usually swarm and 
migrate on hot sunny days in August and September ; but this 
day a vast emigration took place in my garden, and myriads 
came forth, in appearance from the drain which goes under the 
fruit wall ; filling the air and the adjoining trees and shrubs 
with their numbers. The females were full of eggs. This late 
swarming is probably owing to the backward, wet seast)n. . The 
day following, not one flying ant was to be seen. 
Horse ants travel home to their nests laden with flies, which 
they have caught, and the aurehse of smaller ants, which they 
seize by violence,* 
* In my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1777, on September 6th, I find the following note 
to the article Flying- Ants :— 
I saw a prodigious swarm of tTiese ants flying about the top of some tall elm trees (close by 
my house) ; some were continually droppinf to the ground as if from the trees, and others rising 
up from the ground : many of them were joined together in copulation ; and I imagine their life 
is but short, for as soon as produced from the egg by the heat of the sun, they propagate their 
species, and soon after perish. They were black, s,ofi)i£what like the small black ant, and had 
four wings. I saw also, at another place, a large sort ^bich were yellowish. On the 8th of 
September, 1785, I ^gaiu cbserred th* same circumstance of?, yast number of these insects flying 
near the tops of the elms and dropping to the ground. 
On the 2d of March, 1777, I sajv great numbers of ants come pni the ground. — Markwick. 
