ON THE ANTS. 
355 
grand principle of art, so long misunderstood in tlie Middle Ages, lias been 
always followed to the very letter by creatures of so low an order, in their 
surprising constructions. 
Tlie fact I have related in reference to the subterranean mining of 
Valencia by the termites, will be found in Humboldt’s “ Travels in Equinoctial 
America.” 
As for La Rochelle, read the interesting chapter in M. de Quatrefages’ 
/Souvenirs Tun Naturaliste. 
NOTE 13.—Book iii., Chap. ii. 
The Ants. —The migrations of the tropical ants, say Azara and Lacordaire, 
sometimes last over two or three days. They are to be compared in continuous¬ 
ness and frightful numbers only to the clouds of pigeons which, in North 
America, obscure the sky for several days in succession (see Audubon). Lund 
(Annates des Sciences Naturelles, 1831, vol. xxiii., p. 113) gives a curious picture 
of these ant-migrations. They are terribly warlike, and the Americans amuse 
themselves by opposing in a duel the visiting ant (Atta) to the Araraa ant. 
The latter, though the weaker, prevails through the potency of its poison. 
As for our European ants, my brother-in-law, M. Hippolyte Mialaret, 
transmits to me a curious fact, which, I believe, has not before been observed. 
He gave them a medley of various kinds of grain,—wheat, barley, rye,—which 
they employed in their buildings. Having opened the ant-hill, he found the 
grains carefully classified, and distributed on different stories,—wheat, for 
example, on the second, barley on the third,—the different kinds being nowhere 
mixed. 
An excellent Italian dissertation by M. Giuseppe Gene would induce one 
to believe Huber mistaken in his assertion that the mother ant can by her 
unaided self found a community. After her fecundation she retires into a 
corner, where she plucks off her wings, and waits. There some prowling ants 
discover, feel, and recognize her, her and her eggs sown on the ground, with 
much prudence and even visible mistrust. Afterwards they explore the 
country round about with an infinite circumspection, always coming back to 
the mother, and hesitating long before they decide. At length, their numbers 
increasing, they definitively adopt her, and set to work. 
The indomitable perseverance of the ants is celebrated in a beautiful 
Oriental legend of I know not what Asiatic prince,—Tamerlane, I believe. 
Beaten and defeated several times in one campaign, he was seated, almost 
despairing, in the depth of his tent. An ant mounted the side. Several 
times he made it drop, but it invariably reascended. He was curious to see 
how long it would persevere, and twenty-four times threw it to the ground 
