An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 2
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Title: An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 2
Author: William Kirby
William Spence
Release date: August 27, 2013 [eBook #43577]
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTRODUCTION TO ENTOMOLOGY: VOL. 2 ***
[Illustration: _Plate IV_]
AN
INTRODUCTION
TO
ENTOMOLOGY:
OR
ELEMENTS
OF THE
_NATURAL HISTORY OF INSECTS_:
WITH PLATES.
By WILLIAM KIRBY, M.A. F.R. and L.S.
RECTOR OF BARHAM,
AND
WILLIAM SPENCE, ESQ. F.L.S.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
_FIFTH EDITION._
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1828.
PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
Letter
XVI. Societies of Insects. Page
1. Imperfect Societies 1-25
XVII. Societies of Insects continued.
2. Perfect Societies.
_White Ants. Ants_ 26-106
XVIII. Perfect Societies of Insects continued.
_Wasps. Humble-bees_ 107-118
XIX. Perfect Societies of Insects continued.
_Hive-bee_ 119-167
XX. Perfect Societies of Insects concluded.
_Hive-bee_ 168-214
XXI. Means by which Insects defend themselves 215-266
XXII. Motions of Insects.
_Larva and Pupa_ 267-299
XXIII. Motions of Insects continued.
_Imago_ 300-370
XXIV. Noises produced by Insects 371-403
XXV. Luminous Insects 404-424
XXVI. Hybernation and Torpidity of Insects 425-459
XXVII. Instinct of Insects 460-523
AN
INTRODUCTION
TO
ENTOMOLOGY.
LETTER XVI.
_SOCIETIES OF INSECTS._
IMPERFECT SOCIETIES.
I see already, and I see it with pleasure, that you will not content
yourself with being a mere collector of insects. To possess a cabinet
well stored, and to know by what name each described individual which
it contains should be distinguished, will not satisfy the love that
is already grown strong in you for my favourite pursuit; and you now
anticipate with a laudable eagerness, the discoveries that you may
make respecting the history and economy of this most interesting
department of the works of our Creator. I hail with joy this
intention to emulate the bright example, and to tread in the hallowed
steps of Swammerdam, Leeuwenhoek, Redi, Malpighi, Vallisnieri, Ray,
Lister, Reaumur, De Geer, Lyonnet, Bonnet, the Hubers, &c.; and I am
confident that a man of your abilities, discernment, and observation
will contribute, in no small degree, to the treasures already poured
into the general fund by these your illustrious predecessors.
I feel not a little flattered when you inform me that the details
contained in my late letters relative to this subject, have
stimulated you to this noble resolution.--Assure yourself, I shall
think no labour lost, that has been the means of winning over to the
science I love, the exertions of a mind like yours.
But if the facts already related, however extraordinary, have had
power to produce such an effect upon you, what will be the momentum,
when I lay before you more at large, as I next purpose, the most
striking particulars of the proceedings of insects in society,
and show the almost incredibly wonderful results of the combined
instincts and labours of these minute beings? In comparison with
these, all that is the fruit of solitary efforts, though some of
them sufficiently marvellous, appear trifling and insignificant: as
the works of man himself, when they are the produce of the industry
and genius of only one, or a few individuals, though they might be
regarded with admiration by a being who had seen nothing similar
before, yet when contrasted with those to which the union of these
qualities in large bodies has given birth, sink into nothing, and
seem unworthy of attention. Who would think a hut extraordinary by
the side of a stately palace, or a small village when in the vicinity
of a populous and magnificent city?
Insects in society may be viewed under several lights, and their
associations are for various purposes and of different durations.
There are societies the object of which is mutual defence; while that
of others is the propagation of the species. Some form marauding
parties, and associate for prey and plunder;--others meet, as it
should seem, under certain circumstances, merely for the sake of
company;--again, others are brought together by accidental causes,
and disperse when these cease to operate;--and finally, others, which
may be said to form proper societies, are associated for the nurture
of their young, and, by the union of their labours and instincts, for
mutual society, help, and comfort, in erecting or repairing their
common habitation, in collecting provisions, and in defending their
fortress when attacked.
With respect to the _duration_ of the societies of insects, some
last only during their first or larva state; and are occasionally
even restricted to its earliest period;--some again only associate
in their perfect or imago state; while with others, the _proper_
societies for instance, the association is for life. But if I divide
societies of insects into perfect and imperfect, it will, I think,
enable me to give you a clearer and better view of the subject. By
_perfect_ societies I mean those that are associated in all their
states, live in a common habitation, and unite their labours to
promote a common object;--and by _imperfect_ societies, those that
are either associated during part of their existence only, or else do
not dwell in a common habitation, nor unite their labours to promote
a common object. In the present letter I shall confine myself to
giving you some account of _imperfect_ societies.
Imperfect societies may be considered as of five
descriptions:--associations for the sake of company
only--associations of males during the season for
pairing--associations formed for the purpose of travelling or
emigrating together--associations for feeding together--and
associations that undertake some common work.
The first of these associations consists chiefly of insects in their
perfect state. The little beetles called whirlwigs (_Gyrinus_),--which
may be seen clustering in groups under warm banks in every river and
every pool, and wheeling round and round with great velocity; at your
approach dispersing and diving under water, but as soon as you retire
resuming their accustomed movements,--seem to be under the influence of
the social principle, and to form their assemblies for no other purpose
than to enjoy together, in the sunbeam, the mazy dance. Impelled by
the same feeling, in the very depth of winter, even when the earth is
covered with snow, the tribes of _Tipulariæ_ (usually, but improperly,
called gnats) assemble in sheltered situations at midday, when the sun
shines, and form themselves into choirs, that alternately rise and fall
with rapid evolutions[1]. To see these little aëry beings apparently
so full of joy and life, and feeling the entire force of the social
principle in that dreary season, when the whole animal creation appears
to suffer, and the rest of the insect tribes are torpid, always conveys
to my mind the most agreeable sensations. These little creatures may
always be seen at all seasons amusing themselves with these choral
dances; which Mr. Wordsworth, in one of his poems[2], has alluded to in
the following beautiful lines:
"Nor wanting here to entertain the thought,
Creatures that in communities exist,
Less, as might seem, for general guardianship
Or through dependance upon mutual aid,
Than by participation of delight,
And a strict love of fellowship combined.
What other spirit can it be that prompts
The gilded summer flies to mix and weave
Their sports together in the solar beam,
Or in the gloom and twilight hum their joy?"
Another association is that of males during the season of pairing.
Of this nature seems to be that of the cockchafer and fernchafer
(_Melolontha vulgaris_ and _Amphimalla solstitialis_), which, at
certain periods of the year and hours of the day, hover over the
summits of the trees and hedges like swarms of bees, affording,
when they alight on the ground, a grateful food to cats, pigs,
and poultry. The males of another root-devouring beetle (_Hoplia
argentea_) assemble by myriads before noon in the meadows, when in
these infinite hosts you will not find even one female[3]. After
noon the congregation is dissolved, and not a single individual
is to be seen in the air[4]: while those of _M. vulgaris_ and _A.
solstitialis_ are on the wing only in the evening.
At the same time of the day some of the short-lived Ephemeræ assemble
in numerous troops, and keep rising and falling alternately in the
air, so as to exhibit a very amusing scene. Many of these also are
males. They continue this dance from about an hour before sun-set,
till the dew becomes too heavy or too cold for them. In the beginning
of September, for two successive years, I was so fortunate as to
witness a spectacle of this kind, which afforded me a more sublime
gratification than any work or exhibition of art has power to
communicate.--The first was in 1811:--taking an evening walk near
my house, when the sun declining fast towards the horizon shone
forth without a cloud, the whole atmosphere over and near the stream
swarmed with infinite myriads of Ephemeræ and little gnats of the
genus _Chironomus_, which in the sun-beam appeared as numerous and
more lucid than the drops of rain, as if the heavens were showering
down brilliant gems.--Afterwards, in the following year, one Sunday,
a little before sun-set, I was enjoying a stroll with a friend at a
greater distance from the river, when in a field by the road-side
the same pleasing scene was renewed, but in a style of still greater
magnificence; for, from some cause in the atmosphere, the insects
at a distance looked much larger than they really were. The choral
dances consisted principally of _Ephemeræ_, but there were also
some of _Chironomi_; the former, however, being most conspicuous,
attracted our chief attention--alternately rising and falling, in
the full beam they appeared so transparent and glorious, that they
scarcely resembled any thing material--they reminded us of angels
and glorified spirits drinking life and joy in the effulgence of the
Divine favour[5]. The bard of Twickenham, from the terms in which his
beautiful description of his sylphs is conceived in _The Rape of the
Lock_, seems to have witnessed the pleasing scene here described:
"Some to the sun their insect wings unfold,
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold;
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight,
Their fluid bodies half dissolv'd in light;
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew,
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew,
Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies,
Where light disports in ever mingling dyes,
While every beam new transient colours flings,
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings."
I wish you may have the good fortune next year to be a spectator of
this all but celestial dance. In the mean time, in May and June,
their season of love, you may often receive much gratification from
observing the motions of a countless host of little black flies of
the genus _Hilara_, (_H. maura_,) which at this period of the year
assemble to wheel in aëry circles over stagnant waters, with a rush
resembling that of a hasty shower driven by the wind.
The next description of insect associations is of those that
congregate for the purpose of travelling or emigrating together. De
Geer has given an account of the larvæ of certain gnats (_Tipulariæ_)
which assemble in considerable numbers for this purpose, so as to
form a band of a finger's breadth, and of from one to two yards
in length. And, what is remarkable, while upon their march, which
is very slow, they adhere to each other by a kind of glutinous
secretion; but when disturbed they separate without difficulty[6].
Kuhn mentions another of the same tribe (from the antennæ in his
figure, which is very indifferent, it should seem a species of
agaric-gnat (_Mycetophila_)), the larvæ of which live in society
and emigrate in files, like the caterpillar of the procession-moth.
First goes one, next follow two, then three, &c., so as to exhibit a
serpentine appearance, probably from their simultaneous undulating
motion and the continuity of the files; whence the common people in
Germany call them (or rather the file when on march) _heerwurm_, and
view them with great dread, regarding them as ominous of war. These
larvæ are apodes, white, subtransparent, with black heads[7].--But of
insect emigrants none are more celebrated than the locusts, which,
when arrived at their perfect state, assemble as before related,
in such numbers, as in their flight to intercept the sunbeams, and
to darken whole countries; passing from one region to another, and
laying waste kingdom after kingdom:--but upon these I have already
said much, and shall have occasion again to enlarge.--The same
tendency to shift their quarters has been observed in our little
indigenous devourers, the Aphides. Mr. White tells us, that about
three o'clock in the afternoon of the first of August 1785, the
people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower of
Aphides or smother-flies, which fell in those parts. Those that
walked in the street at that juncture found themselves covered with
these insects, which settled also upon the hedges and in the gardens,
blackening all the vegetables where they alighted. His annuals were
discoloured by them, and the stalks of a bed of onions quite coated
over for six days after. These armies, he observes, were then, no
doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters; and
might have come from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex,
the wind being all that day in the east. They were observed at the
same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from
Farnham to Alton[8]. A similar emigration of these flies I once
witnessed, to my great annoyance, when travelling later in the year,
in the Isle of Ely. The air was so full of them, that they were
incessantly flying into my eyes, nostrils, &c.; and my clothes were
covered by them. And in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so
abundant for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed
with surprise by the most incurious observers.
As the locust-eating thrush (_Turdus gryllivorus_) accompanies
the locusts, so the lady-birds (_Coccinellæ_) seem to pursue the
Aphides; for I know no other reason to assign for the vast number
that are sometimes, especially in the autumn, to be met with on the
sea-coast or the banks of large rivers. Many years ago, those of
the Humber were so thickly strewed with the common Lady-bird (_C.
septempunctata_), that it was difficult to avoid treading upon them.
Some years afterwards I noticed a mixture of species, collected in
vast numbers, on the sand-hills on the sea-shore, at the north-west
extremity of Norfolk. My friend the Rev. Peter Lathbury made long
since a similar observation at Orford, on the Suffolk coast; and
about five or six years ago they covered the cliffs, as I have
before remarked[9], of all the watering-places on the Kentish and
Sussex coasts, to the no small alarm of the superstitious, who
thought them forerunners of some direful evil. These last probably
emigrated with the Aphides from the hop-grounds. Whether the latter
and their devourers cross the sea has not been ascertained; that the
Coccinellæ attempt it, is evident from their alighting upon ships at
sea, as I have witnessed myself.--This appears clearly to have been
the case with another emigrating insect, the saw-fly (_Athalia?_) of
the turnip (which, though so mischievous, appears never to have been
described; it is nearly related to _A. Centifoliæ_)[10]. It is the
general opinion in Norfolk, Mr. Marshall informs us[11], that these
insects come from over sea. A farmer declared he saw them arrive in
clouds so as to darken the air; the fishermen asserted that they had
repeatedly seen flights of them pass over their heads when they were
at a distance from land; and on the beach and cliffs they were in
such quantities, that they might have been taken up by shovels-full.
Three miles in-land they were described as resembling swarms of
bees. This was in August 1782. Unentomological observers, such as
farmers and fishermen, might easily mistake one kind of insect for
another; but supposing them correct, the swarms in question might
perhaps have passed from Lincolnshire to Norfolk.--Meinecken tells
us, that he once saw in a village in Anhalt, on a clear day, about
four in the afternoon, such a cloud of dragon-flies (_Libellulina_)
as almost concealed the sun, and not a little alarmed the villagers,
under the idea that they were locusts[12]: several instances are
given by Rösel of similar clouds of these insects having been seen in
Silesia and other districts[13]; and Mr. Woolnough of Hollesley in
Suffolk, a most attentive observer of nature, once witnessed such an
army of the smaller dragon-flies (_Agrion_) flying in-land from the
sea, as to cast a slight shadow over a field of four acres as they
passed.--Professor Walch states, that one night about eleven o'clock,
sitting in his study, his attention was attracted by what seemed the
pelting of hail against his window, which surprising him by its long
continuance, he opened the window, and found the noise was occasioned
by a flight of the froth frog-hopper (_Cercopis spumaria_), which
entered the room in such numbers as to cover the table. From this
circumstance and the continuance of the pelting, which lasted at
least half an hour, an idea may be formed of the vast host of this
insect passing over. It passed from east to west; and as his window
faced the south, they only glanced against it obliquely[14]. He
afterwards witnessed, in August, a similar emigration of myriads of
a kind of ground-beetle (_Amara vulgaris_,)[15].--Another writer in
the same work, H. Kapp, observed on a calm sunny day a prodigious
flight of the noxious cabbage-butterfly (_Pontia Brassicæ_), which
passed from north-east to south-west, and lasted two hours[16]. Kalm
saw these last insects midway in the British Channel[17]. Lindley, a
writer in the _Royal Military Chronicle_, tells us, that in Brazil,
in the beginning of March 1803, for many days successively there
was an immense flight of white and yellow butterflies, probably
of the same tribe as the cabbage-butterfly. They were observed
never to settle, but proceeded in a direction from north-west to
south-east. No buildings seemed to stop them from steadily pursuing
their course; which being to the ocean, at only a small distance,
they must consequently perish. It is remarked that at this time no
other kind of butterfly is to be seen, though the country usually
abounds in such a variety[18].--Major Moor, while stationed at
Bombay, as he was playing at chess one evening with a friend in Old
Woman's Island, near that place, witnessed an immense flight of bugs
(_Geocorisæ_), which were going westward. They were so numerous as
to cover every thing in the apartment in which he was sitting.--When
staying at Aldeburgh, on the eastern coast, I have, at certain times,
seen innumerable insects upon the beach close to the waves, and
apparently washed up by them. Though wetted, they were quite alive.
It is remarkable, that of the emigrating insects here enumerated,
the majority--for instance the lady-birds, saw-flies, dragon-flies,
ground-beetles, frog-hoppers, &c.--are not usually social insects,
but seem to congregate, like swallows, merely for the purpose of
emigration. What incites them to this is one of those mysteries
of nature, which at present we cannot penetrate. A scarcity of
food urges the locusts to shift their quarters; and too confined a
space to accommodate their numbers occasions the bees to swarm: but
neither of these motives can operate in causing unsocial insects to
congregate. It is still more difficult to account for the impulse
that urges these creatures, with their filmy wings and fragile form,
to attempt to cross the ocean, and expose themselves, one would
think, to inevitable destruction. Yet, though we are unable to assign
the cause of this singular instinct, some of the reasons which
induced the Creator to endow them with it may be conjectured. This is
clearly one of the modes by which their numbers are kept within due
limits, as, doubtless, the great majority of these adventurers perish
in the waters. Thus, also, a great supply of food is furnished to
those fish in the sea itself, which at other seasons ascend the
rivers in search of them; and this probably is one of the means, if
not the only one, to which the numerous islands of this globe are
indebted for their insect population. Whether the insects I observed
upon the beach wetted by the waves, had flown from our own shores,
and falling into the water had been brought back by the tide; or
whether they had succeeded in the attempt to pass from the continent
to us, by flying as far as they could, and then falling had been
brought by the waves, cannot certainly be ascertained; but Kalm's
observation inclines me to the latter opinion.
The next order of imperfect associations is that of those insects
which feed together:--these are of two descriptions--those that
associate in their _first_ or _last_ state only, and those that
associate in _all_ their states. The first of these associations is
often very short-lived: a patch of eggs is glued to a leaf; when
hatched, the little larvæ feed side by side very amicably, and a
pleasant sight it is to see the regularity with which this work is
often done, as if by word of command; but when the leaf that served
for their cradle is consumed, their society is dissolved, and each
goes where he can to seek his own fortune, regardless of the fate or
lot of his brethren. Of this kind are the larvæ of the saw-fly of
the gooseberry, whose ravages I have recorded before[19], and that
of the cabbage-butterfly; the latter, however, keep longer together,
and seldom wholly separate. In their final state, I have noticed
that the individuals of _Thrips Physapus_, the fly that causes us
in hot weather such intolerable titillation, are very fond of each
other's company when they feed. Towards the latter end of last July,
walking through a wheat-field, I observed that all the blossoms of
_Convolvulus arvensis_, though very numerous, were interiorly turned
quite black by the infinite number of these insects, which were
coursing about within them.
But the most interesting insects of this order are those which
associate in _all_ their states.--Two populous tribes, the great
devastators of the vegetable world, the one in warm and the other
in cold climates, to which I have already alluded under the head
of emigrations--you perceive I am speaking of _Aphides_ and
_Locusts_--are the best examples of this order: although, concerning
the societies of the first, at present we can only say that they are
merely the result of a common origin and station: but those of the
latter, the locusts, wear more the appearance of design, and of being
produced by the social principle.
So much as the world has suffered from these animals[20], it is
extraordinary that so few observations have been made upon their
history, economy, and mode of proceeding. One of the best accounts
seems to be that of Professor Pallas, in his _Travels into the
Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire_. The species to which
his principal attention was paid appears to have been the _Locusta
italica_, in its larva and pupa state. "In serene warm weather,"
says he, "the locusts are in full motion in the morning immediately
after the evaporation of the dew; and if no dew has fallen, they
appear as soon as the sun imparts his genial warmth. At first some
are seen running about like messengers among the reposing swarms,
which are lying partly compressed upon the ground, at the side of
small eminences, and partly attached to tall plants and shrubs.
Shortly after the whole body begins to move forward in one direction
and with little deviation. They resemble a swarm of ants, all taking
the same course, at small distances, but without touching each other:
they uniformly travel towards a certain region as fast as a fly can
run, and without leaping, unless pursued; in which case, indeed, they
disperse, but soon collect again and follow their former route. In
this manner they advance from morning to evening without halting,
frequently at the rate of a hundred fathoms and upwards in the course
of a day. Although they prefer marching along high roads, footpaths,
or open tracts; yet when their progress is opposed by bushes, hedges,
and ditches, they penetrate through them: their way can only be
impeded by the waters of brooks or canals, as they are apparently
terrified at every kind of moisture. Often, however, they endeavour
to gain the opposite bank with the aid of overhanging boughs; and if
the stalks of plants or shrubs be laid across the water, they pass
in close columns over these temporary bridges; on which they even
seem to rest and enjoy the refreshing coolness. Towards sunset the
whole swarm gradually collect in parties, and creep up the plants,
or encamp on slight eminences. On cold, cloudy, or rainy days they
do not travel.--As soon as they acquire wings they progressively
disperse, but still fly about in large swarms[21]."
"In the month of May, when the ovaries of these insects were
ripe and turgid," says Dr. Shaw[22], "each of these swarms began
gradually to disappear, and retired into the Mettijiah, and other
adjacent plains, where they deposited their eggs. These were no
sooner hatched in June, than each of the broods collected itself
into a compact body, of a furlong or more in square; and marching
afterwards directly forwards toward the sea, they let nothing
escape them----_they kept their ranks, like men of war_; climbing
over, as they advanced, every tree or wall that was in their way;
nay, they entered into our very houses and bed-chambers, like
_so many thieves_.----A day or two after one of these hordes was
in motion, others were already hatched to march and glean after
them.----Having lived near a month in this manner----they arrived
at their full growth, and threw off their _nympha-state_ by casting
their outward skin. To prepare themselves for this change, they
clung by their hinder feet to some bush, twig, or corner of a
stone; and immediately, by using an undulating motion, their heads
would first break out, and then the rest of their bodies. The whole
transformation was performed in seven or eight minutes; after which
they lay for a small time in a torpid and seemingly in a languishing
condition; but as soon as the sun and the air had hardened their
wings, by drying up the moisture that remained upon them after
casting their sloughs, they reassumed their former voracity, with an
addition of strength and agility. Yet they continued not long in this
state before they were entirely dispersed." The species Dr. Shaw here
speaks of is probably not the _Locusta migratoria_.
The old Arabian fable, that they are directed in their flights
by a leader or king[23], has been adopted: but I think without
sufficient reason, by several travellers. Thus Benjamin Bullivant,
in his observations on the Natural History of New England[24], says
that "the locusts have a kind of regimental discipline, and as it
were some commanders, which show greater and more splendid wings
than the common ones, and arise first when pursued by the fowls or
the feet of the traveller, as I have often seriously remarked."
And in like terms Jackson observes, that "they have a government
amongst themselves similar to that of the bees and ants; and when the
(_Sultan Jerraad_) king of the locusts rises, the whole body follow
him, not one solitary straggler being left behind[25]." But that
locusts have leaders, like the bees or ants, distinguished from the
rest by the size and splendour of their wings, is a circumstance that
has not yet been established by any satisfactory evidence; indeed,
very strong reasons may be urged against it. The nations of bees and
ants, it must be observed, are housed together in one nest or hive,
the whole population of which is originally derived from one common
mother, and the leaders of the swarms in each are the females. But
the armies of locusts, though they herd together, travel together,
and feed together, consist of an infinity of separate families, all
derived from different mothers, who have laid their eggs in separate
cells or houses in the earth; so that there is little or no analogy
between the societies of locusts and those of bees and ants; and this
pretended sultan is something quite different from the queen-bee or
the female ants. It follows, therefore, that as the locusts have no
common mother, like the bees, to lead their swarms, there is no one
that nature, by a different organization and ampler dimensions,
and a more august form, has destined to this high office. The only
question remaining is, whether one be elected from the rest by common
consent as their leader, or whether their instinct impels them to
follow the first that takes flight or alights. This last is the
learned Bochart's opinion, and seems much the most reasonable[26].
The absurdity of the other supposition, that an election is made,
will appear from such queries as these, at which you may smile.--Who
are the electors? Are the myriads of millions all consulted, or is
the elective franchise confined to a few? Who holds the courts and
takes the votes? Who casts them up and declares the result? When is
the election made?--The larvæ appear to be as much under government
as the perfect insect.--Is the monarch then chosen by his peers
when they first leave the egg and emerge from their subterranean
caverns? or have larva, pupa, and imago each their separate king? The
account given us in Scripture is certainly much the most probable,
that the locusts have no king, though they observe as much order
and regularity in their movements as if they were under military
discipline, and had a ruler over them[27]. Some species of ants, as
we learn from the admirable history of them by M. P. Huber, though
they go forth by common consent upon their military expeditions, yet
the order of their columns keeps perpetually changing; so that those
who lead the van at the first setting out, soon fall into the rear,
and others take their place: their successors do the same; and such
is the constant order of their march. It seems probable, as these
columns are extended to a considerable length, that the object of
this successive change of leaders is to convey constant intelligence
to those in the rear, of what is going forward in the van. Whether
any thing like this takes place for the regulation of their motions
in the innumerable locust-armies, which are sometimes co-extensive
with vast kingdoms; or whether their instinct simply directs them
to follow the first that moves or flies, and to keep their measured
distance, so that, as the prophet speaks, "one does not thrust
another, and they walk every one in his path[28]," must be left to
future naturalists to ascertain. And I think that you will join with
me in the wish that travellers, who have a taste for Natural History,
and some knowledge of insects, would devote a share of attention to
the proceedings of these celebrated animals, so that we might have
facts instead of fables.
The last order of imperfect associations approaches nearer to perfect
societies, and is that of those insects which the social principle
urges to unite in some common work for the benefit of the community.
Amongst the _Coleoptera_, _Ateuchus pilularius_, a beetle before
mentioned, acts under the influence of this principle. "I have
attentively admired their industry and mutual assisting of each
other," says Catesby, "in rolling those globular balls from the
place where they made them, to that of their interment, which is
usually the distance of some yards, more or less. This they perform
breech foremost, by raising their hind parts, forcing along the ball
with their hind feet. Two or three of them are sometimes engaged
in trundling one ball, which, from meeting with impediments from
the unevenness of the ground, is sometimes deserted by them: it is
however attempted by others with success, unless it happens to roll
into some deep hollow chink, where they are constrained to leave it;
but they continue their work by rolling off the next ball that comes
in their way. None of them seem to know their own balls, but an equal
care for the whole appears to affect all the community[29]."
Many larvæ also of _Lepidoptera_ associate with this view, some of
which are social only during part of their existence, and others
during the whole of it. The first of these continue together while
their united labours are beneficial to them; but when they reach a
certain period of their life, they disperse and become solitary.
Of this kind are the caterpillars of a little butterfly (_Melitæa
Cinxia_) which devour the narrow-leaved plantain. The families
of these, usually amounting to about a hundred, unite to form a
pyramidal silken tent, containing several apartments, which is
pitched over some of the plants that constitute their food, and
shelters them both from the sun and the rain. When they have consumed
the provision which it covers, they construct a new one over other
roots of this plant; and sometimes four or five of these encampments
may be seen within a foot or two of each other. Against winter they
weave and erect a stronger habitation of a rounder form, not divided
by any partitions, in which they lie heaped one upon another, each
being rolled up. About April they separate, and continue solitary
till they assume the pupa.
Reaumur, to whom I am indebted for this account, has also given
us an interesting history of another insect, the gold-tail-moth
(_Arctia chrysorhœa_) before mentioned, whose caterpillars are of
this description. They belong to that family of _Bombycidæ_, which
envelop their eggs in hair plucked from their own body. As soon
as one of these young caterpillars is disclosed from the egg, it
begins to feed; another quickly joins it, placing itself by its
side; thus they proceed in succession till a file is formed across
the leaf:--a second is then begun; and after this is completed, a
third--and so they proceed till the whole upper surface of the leaf
is covered:--but as a single leaf will not contain the whole family,
the remainder take their station upon the adjoining ones. No sooner
have they satisfied the cravings of hunger, than they begin to think
of erecting a common habitation, which at first is only a vaulted
web, that covers the leaf they inhabit, but by their united labours
in due time grows into a magnificent tent of silk, containing various
apartments sufficient to defend and shelter them all from the attack
of enemies and the inclemency of the seasons. As our caterpillars,
like eastern monarchs, are too delicate to adventure their feet
upon the rough bark of the tree upon which they feed, they lay a
silken carpet over every road and pathway leading to their palace,
which extends as far as they have occasion to go for food. To the
habitation just described they retreat during heavy rains, and
when the sun is too hot:--they likewise pass part of the night in
them;--and, indeed, at all times some may usually be found at home.
Upon any sudden alarm they retreat to them for safety, and also when
they cast their skins:--in the winter they are wholly confined to
them, emerging again in the spring: but in May and June they entirely
desert them; and, losing all their love for society, live in
solitude till they become pupæ, which takes place in about a month.
When they desert their nests, the spiders take possession of them;
which has given rise to a prevalent though most absurd opinion, that
they are the parents of these caterpillars[30].
With other caterpillars the association continues during the whole of
the larva state. De Geer mentions one of the saw-flies (_Serrifera_)
of this description which form a common nidus by connecting leaves
together with silken threads, each larva moreover spinning a tube of
the same material for its own private apartment, in which it glides
backwards and forwards upon its back[31]. I have observed similar
nidi in this country; the insects that form them belong to the
Fabrician genus _Lyda_.
The most remarkable insects, however, that arrange under this class
of imperfect associates, are those that observe a particular order
of march. Though they move without beat of drum, they maintain as
much regularity in their step as a file of soldiers. It is a most
agreeable sight, says one of Nature's most favoured admirers, Bonnet,
to see several hundreds of the larvæ of _Trichoda Neustria_ marching
after each other, some in straight lines, others in curves of various
inflection, resembling, from their fiery colour, a moving cord of
gold stretched upon a silken ribband of the purest white; this
ribband is the carpeted causeway that leads to their leafy pasture
from their nest. Equally amusing is the progress of another moth,
the _Pityocampa_, before noticed; they march together from their
common citadel, consisting of pine leaves united and inwoven with
the silk which they spin, in a single line: in following each other
they describe a multitude of graceful curves of varying figure, thus
forming a series of living wreaths, which change their shape every
moment:--all move with a uniform pace, no one pressing too forward or
loitering behind; when the first stops, all stop, each defiling in
exact military order[32].
A still more singular and pleasing spectacle, when their regiments
march out to forage, is exhibited by the caterpillars of the
_Processionary_ moth _Lasiocampa processionea_. This moth,
which is a native of France, and has not yet been found in this
country, inhabits the oak. Each family consists of from 600 to 800
individuals. When young, they have no fixed habitation, but encamp
sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, under the shelter of
their web: but when they have attained two-thirds of their growth,
they weave for themselves a common tent, before described[33].
About sun-set the regiment leaves its quarters; or, to make the
metaphor harmonize with the trivial name of the animal, the monks
their cœnobium. At their head is a chief, by whose movements their
procession is regulated. When he stops, all stop, and proceed when
he proceeds; three or four of his immediate followers succeed in the
same line, the head of the second touching the tail of the first:
then comes an equal series of pairs, next of threes, and so on as
far as fifteen or twenty. The whole procession moves regularly on
with an even pace, each file treading upon the steps of those that
precede it. If the leader, arriving at a particular point, pursues
a different direction, all march to that point before they turn.
Probably in this they are guided by some scent imparted to the tracks
by those that pass over them. Sometimes the order of procession
is different; the leader, who moves singly, is followed by two,
these are succeeded by three, then come four, and so on. When the
leader,--who in nothing differs from the rest, and is probably the
caterpillar nearest the entrance to the nest, followed, as I have
described,--has proceeded to the distance of about two feet, more
or less, he makes a halt; during which those which remain come
forth, take their places, the company forms into files, the march is
resumed, and all follow as regularly as if they kept time to music.
These larvæ may be occasionally found at mid-day out of their nests,
packed close one to another without making any movement; so that,
although they occupy a space sufficiently ample, it is not easy to
discover them. At other times, instead of being simply laid side by
side, they are formed into singular masses, in which they are heaped
one upon another, and as it were interwoven together. Thus also they
are disposed in their nests. Sometimes their families divide into two
bands, which never afterwards unite[34].
I have nothing further of importance to communicate to you on
imperfect societies: in my next I shall begin the most interesting
subject that Entomology offers; a subject, to say the least,
including as great a portion both of instruction and amusement as
any branch of Natural History affords;--I mean those _perfect_
associations which have for their great object the multiplication of
the species, and the education, if such a term may be here employed,
of the young. This is too fertile a theme to be confined to a single
letter, but must occupy several.
I am, &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See also Markwick in White's _Nat. Hist._ ii. 256.
[2] _The Excursion._
[3] The females (_Scarabæus argenteus_, Marsh.) have red legs, and
the males (_Scarabæus pulverulentus_, Marsh.) black.
[4] Kirby in _Linn. Trans._ v. 256.
[5] The authors of this work were the witnesses of the magnificent
scene here described. It was on the second of September. The first
was on the ninth of that month.
[6] De Geer, vi. 338.
[7] _Naturforsch._ xvii. 226.
[8] _Nat. Hist._ ii. 101.
[9] VOL. I. 265--.
[10] _Fn. Germ. Init._ xlix. 18.
[11] _Philos. Trans._ lxxiii. 217.
[12] _Naturforsch._ vi. 110.
[13] ii. 135.
[14] _Naturforsch._ vi. 111.
[15] Ibid. xi. 95.
[16] Ibid. 94.
[17] _Travels_, i. 13.
[18] _R. Milit. Chron._ for March 1815, p. 452.
[19] VOL. I. 197.
[20] See VOL. I. 215.
[21] Pallas, ii. 422-6.
[22] _Travels_, 187.
[23] Bochart, _Hierozoic._ ii. l. 4. c. 2. 460.
[24] In _Philos. Trans._ for 1698.
[25] Jackson's _Marocco_, 51.
[26] Bochart, _Hierozoic._ ubi supra.
[27] Proverbs xxx. 27.
[28] Joel ii. 8.
[29] Catesby's _Carolina_, ii. 111. See above, VOL. I. 51.
[30] Vol. I. 473. Reaumur, ii. 125.
[31] De Geer, ii. 1029.
[32] Bonnet, ii. 57.
[33] VOL. I. 475.
[34] Reaumur, ii. 180.
LETTER XVII.
_SOCIETIES OF INSECTS CONTINUED._
PERFECT SOCIETIES. (_White Ants and Ants._)
The associations of insects of which my last letter gave you a
detail, were of a very imperfect kind, both as to their object and
duration: but those which I am now to lay before you exhibit the
semblance of a nearer approach, both in their principle and its
results, to the societies of man himself. There are two kindred
sentiments, that in these last act with most powerful energy--desire
and affection.--From the first proceed many wants that cannot
be satisfied without the intercourse, aid, and co-operation of
others; and by the last we are impelled to seek the good of certain
objects, and to delight in their society. Thus self-love combines
with philanthropy to produce the social principle, both desire and
love alternately urging us to an intercourse with each other; and
from these in union originate the multiplication and preservation
of the species. These two passions are the master-movers in this
business; but there is a third subsidiary to them, which, though it
trenches upon the social principle, considered abstractedly, is often
a powerful bond of union in separate societies--you will readily
perceive that I am speaking of fear;--under the influence of this
passion these are drawn closer together, and unite more intimately
for defence against some common enemy, and to raise works of munition
that may resist his attack.
The main instrument of association is language, and no association
can be perfect where there is not a common tongue. The origin of
nationality was difference of speech: at Babel, when tongues were
divided, nations separated. Language may be understood in a larger
sense than to signify inflections of the voice,--it may well include
all the means of making yourself understood by another, whether by
gestures, sounds, signs, or words: the two first of these kinds may
be called natural language, and the two last arbitrary or artificial.
I have said that perfect societies of insects exhibit the _semblance_
of a nearer approach, both in their principle and its results, to
the societies of man himself, because, unless we could perfectly
understand what instinct is, and how it acts, we cannot, without
exposing ourselves to the charge of temerity, assert that these are
precisely the same.
But when we consider the object of these societies, the preservation
and multiplication of the species; and the means by which that object
is attained, the united labours and co-operation of perhaps millions
of individuals, it seems as if they were impelled by passions very
similar to those main-springs of human associations, which I have just
enumerated. Desire appears to stimulate them--love to allure them--fear
to alarm them. They want a habitation to reside in, and food for their
subsistence. Does not this look as if desire were the operating cause,
which induces them to unite their labours to construct the one and
provide the other? Their nests contain a numerous family of helpless
brood. Does not love here seem to urge them to that exemplary and fond
attention, and those unremitted and indefatigable exertions manifested
by the whole community for the benefit of these dear objects? Is it
not also evidenced by their general and singular attachment to their
females, by their mutual caresses, by their feeding each other, by
their apparent sympathy with suffering individuals and endeavours to
relieve them, by their readiness to help those that are in difficulty,
and finally by their sports and assemblies for relaxation? That fear
produces its influence upon them seems no less evident, when we see
them, agitated by the approach of enemies, endeavour to remove what
is most dear to them beyond their reach, unite their efforts to
repel their attacks, and to construct works of defence. They appear
to have besides a common language; for they possess the faculty, by
significative gestures and sounds, of communicating their wants and
ideas to each other[35].
There are, however, the following great differences between human
societies and those of insects. Man is susceptible of individual
attachment, which forms the basis of his happiness, and the source
of his purest and dearest enjoyments:--whereas the love of insects
seems to be a kind of instinctive patriotism that is extended to the
whole community, never distinguishing individuals, unless, as in the
instance of the female bee, connected with that great object.
Man also, endowed with reason, forms a judgement from circumstances,
and by a variety of means can attain the same end. Besides
the language of nature, gestures, and exclamations, which the
passions produce, he is gifted with the divine faculty of speech,
and can express his thoughts by articulate sounds or artificial
language.--Not so our social insects. Every species has its peculiar
mode of proceeding, to which it adheres as to the law of its nature,
never deviating but under the control of imperious circumstances;
for in particular instances, as you will see when I come to treat of
their instincts, they know how to vary, though not very materially,
from the usual mode[36]. But they never depart, like man, from the
general system; and, in common with the rest of the animal kingdom,
they have no articulate language.
Human associations, under the direction of reason and revelation,
are also formed with higher views,--I mean as to government, morals,
and religion:--with respect to the last of these, the social insects
of course can have nothing to do, except that by their wonderful
proceedings they give man an occasion of glorifying his great
Creator; but in their instincts, extraordinary as it may seem, they
exhibit a semblance of the two former, as will abundantly appear in
the course of our correspondence.
I shall not detain you longer by prefatory remarks from the amusing
scene to which I am eager to introduce you; but the following
observations of M. P. Huber on this subject are so just and striking,
that I cannot refrain from copying them.
"The history of insects that live in solitude consists of their
generation, their peculiar habits, the metamorphoses they undergo;
their manner of life under each successive form; the stratagems for
the attack of their enemies, and the skill with which they construct
their habitation: but that of insects which form numerous societies,
is not confined to some remarkable proceedings, to some peculiar
talent: it offers new relations, which arise from common interest;
from the equality or superiority of rank; from the part which each
member supports in the society;--and all these relations suppose a
connexion between the different individuals of which it consists,
that can scarcely exist but by the intervention of language: for such
may be called every mode of expressing their wishes, their wants,
and even their ideas, if that name may be given to the impulses of
instinct. It would be difficult to explain in any other way that
concurrence of all wills to one end, and that species of harmony
which the whole of their institution exhibits."
The great end of the societies of insects being the rapid
multiplication of the species, Providence has employed extraordinary
means to secure the fulfilment of this object, by creating a
particular order of individuals in each society, which, freed from
sexual pursuits, may give themselves wholly to labour, and thus
absolve the females from every employment but that of furnishing
the society from time to time with a sufficient supply of eggs to
keep up the population to its proper standard. In the case of the
_Termites_, the office of working for the society, as these insects
belong to an order whose metamorphosis is _semi-complete_, devolves
upon the larvæ; the neuters, unless these should prove to be the
larvæ of males, being the soldiers of the community.
From this circumstance perfect societies may be divided into two
classes; the first including those whose workers are _larvæ_, and the
second those whose workers are _neuters_[37]. The white ants belong to
the former of these classes, and the social _Hymenoptera_ to the latter.
Before I begin with the history of the societies of white ants, I
must notice a remark that has been made applying to societies in
general--that numbers are essential to the full development of the
instinct of social animals. This has been observed by Bonnet with
respect to the beaver[38]; by Reaumur of the hive-bee; and by M. P.
Huber of the humble-bee[39]. Amongst hymenopterous social insects,
however, the observation seems not universally applicable, but only
under particular circumstances; for in incipient societies of ants,
humble-bees, and wasps, one female lays the foundations of them at
first by herself; and the first brood of neuters that is hatched is
very small.
* * * * *
I have on a former occasion given you some account of the
devastation produced by the white ants, or _Termites_, the species of
which constitute the first class of perfect societies[40]; I shall
now relate to you some further particulars of their history, which
will, I hope, give you a better opinion of them.
The majority of these animals are natives of tropical countries,
though two species are indigenous to Europe; one of which, thought to
have been imported, is come so near to us as Bourdeaux. The fullest
account hitherto given of their history is that of Mr. Smeathman, in
the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1781; which, since it has in
many particulars been confirmed by the observations of succeeding
naturalists, though in some things he was evidently mistaken, I shall
abridge for you, correcting him where he appears to be in error, and
adding from Latreille, and the MS. of a French naturalist resident
on the spot, kindly furnished by Professor Hooker, what they have
observed with respect to those of Bourdeaux and Ceylon. The white
ants, though they belong to the _Neuroptera_ order, borrow their
instinct from the hymenopterous social tribes, and in conjunction
with the ants (_Formica_) connect the two orders. Their societies
consist of five different descriptions of individuals--workers or
larvæ--nymphs or pupæ--neuters or soldiers--males and females.
1. The _workers_ or larvæ, answering to the hymenopterous neuters,
are the most numerous and at the same time most active part of the
community; upon whom devolves the office of erecting and repairing
the buildings, collecting provisions, attending upon the female,
conveying the eggs when laid to what Smeathman calls the nurseries,
and feeding the young larvæ till they are old enough to take care
of themselves. They are distinguished from the soldiers by their
diminutive size, by their round heads and shorter mandibles.
2. The _nymphs_ or pupæ. These were not noticed by Smeathman, who
mistook the neuters for them:--they differ in nothing from the larvæ,
and probably are equally active, except that they have rudiments of
wings, or rather the wings folded up in cases (_Pterothecæ_). They were
first observed by Latreille; nor did they escape the author of the MS.
above alluded to, who mistook them for a different kind of larvæ.
3. The _neuters_, erroneously called by Smeathman pupæ. These are
much less numerous than the workers, bearing the proportion of one
to one hundred, and exceeding them greatly in bulk. They are also
distinguishable by their long and large head, armed with very long
subulate mandibles. Their office is that of sentinels; and when the
nest is attacked, to them is committed the task of defending it.
These neuters are quite unlike those in the _Hymenoptera_ perfect
societies, which seem to be a kind of abortive females, and there is
nothing analogous to them in any other department of Entomology.
4. and 5. _Males_ and _females_, or the insects arrived at their state
of perfection, and capable of continuing the species. There is only
one of each in every separate society; they are exempted from all
participation in the labours and employments occupying the rest of
the community, that they may be wholly devoted to the furnishing of
constant accessions to the population of the colony. Though at their
first disclosure from the pupa they have four wings, like the female
ants they soon cast them; but they may then be distinguished from the
blind larvæ, pupæ, and neuters, by their large and prominent eyes[41].
The first establishment of a colony of Termites takes place in the
following manner. In the evening, soon after the first tornado, which
at the latter end of the dry season proclaims the approach of the
ensuing rains, these animals, having attained to their perfect state,
in which they are furnished and adorned with two pair of wings, emerge
from their clay-built citadels by myriads and myriads to seek their
fortune. Borne on these ample wings, and carried by the wind, they
fill the air, entering the houses, extinguishing the lights, and even
sometimes being driven on board the ships that are not far from the
shore. The next morning they are discovered covering the surface of the
earth and waters: deprived of the wings which before enabled them to
avoid their numerous enemies, and which are only calculated to carry
them a few hours, and looking like large maggots; from the most active,
industrious, and rapacious, they are now become the most helpless and
cowardly beings in nature, and the prey of innumerable enemies, to
the smallest of which they make not the least resistance. Insects,
especially ants, which are always on the hunt for them, leaving no
place unexplored; birds, reptiles, beasts, and even man himself, look
upon this event as their harvest, and, as you have been told before,
make them their food; so that scarcely a single pair in many millions
get into a place of safety, fulfill the first law of nature, and lay
the foundation of a new community. At this time they are seen running
upon the ground, the male after the female, and sometimes two chasing
one, and contending with great eagerness, regardless of the innumerable
dangers that surround them, who shall win the prize.
The workers, who are continually prowling about in their covered ways,
occasionally meet with one of these pairs, and, being impelled by their
instinct, pay them homage, and they are elected as it were to be king
and queen, or rather father and mother, of a new colony[42]: all that
are not so fortunate, inevitably perish; and, considering the infinite
host of their enemies, probably in the course of the following day.
The workers, as soon as this election takes place, begin to inclose
their new rulers in a small chamber of clay, before described[43],
suited to their size, the entrances to which are only large enough to
admit themselves and the neuters, but much too small for the royal
pair to pass through;--so that their state of royalty is a state of
confinement, and so continues during the remainder of their existence.
The impregnation of the female is supposed to take place after this
confinement, and she soon begins to furnish the infant colony with new
inhabitants. The care of feeding her and her male companion devolves
upon the industrious larvæ, who supply them both with every thing
that they want. As she increases in dimensions, they keep enlarging
the cell in which she is detained. When the business of oviposition
commences, they take the eggs from the female, and deposit them in the
nurseries[44]. Her abdomen now begins gradually to extend, till in
process of time it is enlarged to 1500 or 2000 times the size of the
rest of her body, and her bulk equals that of 20,000 or 30,000 workers.
This part, often more than three inches in length, is now a vast matrix
of eggs, which make long circumvolutions through numberless slender
serpentine vessels:--it is also remarkable for its peristaltic motion,
(in this resembling the female ant[45],) which, like the undulations of
water, produces a perpetual and successive rise and fall over the whole
surface of the abdomen, and occasions a constant extrusion of the eggs,
amounting sometimes in old females to sixty in a minute, or eighty
thousand and upwards in twenty-four hours[46]. As these females live
two years in their perfect state, how astonishing must be the number
produced in that time!
This incessant extrusion of eggs must call for the attention of a
large number of the workers in the royal chamber (and indeed it is
always full of them), to take them as they come forth and carry them
to the nurseries; in which, when hatched, they are provided with
food, and receive every necessary attention till they are able to
shift for themselves.--One remarkable circumstance attends these
nurseries--they are always covered with a kind of mould, amongst
which arise numerous globules about the size of a small pin's head.
This is probably a species of _Mucor_; and by Mr. König, who
found them also in nests of an East-Indian species of Termes, is
conjectured to be the food of the larvæ.
The royal cell has besides some soldiers in it, a kind of body guard
to the royal pair that inhabit it; and the surrounding apartments
contain always many both labourers and soldiers in waiting, that they
may successively attend upon and defend the common father and mother,
on whose safety depend the happiness and even existence of the whole
community; and whom these faithful subjects never abandon even in the
last distress.
The manner in which the Termites feed the young brood, before they
commence their active life and are admitted to share in the labours of
the nest, has not, as far as I know, been recorded by any writer: I
shall therefore leave them in their nurseries, and introduce you to the
bustling scene which these creatures exhibit in their first state after
they are become useful. To do this, in vain should I carry you to one
of their nests--you would scarcely see a single one stirring--though,
perhaps, under your feet there would be millions going and returning
by a thousand different ways. Unless I possessed the power of Asmodeus
in _Le Diable Boiteux_, of showing you their houses and covered ways
with their roofs removed, you would return home as wise as you came;
for these little busy creatures are taught by Providence always to work
under cover. If they have to travel over a rock or up a tree, they
vault with a coping of earth the route they mean to pursue, and they
form subterranean paths and tunnels, some of a diameter wider than the
bore of a large cannon, on all sides from their habitation to their
various objects of attack; or which sloping down (for they cannot well
mount a surface quite perpendicular) penetrate to the depth of three
or four feet under their nests into the earth, till they arrive at a
soil proper to be used in the erection of their buildings. Were they,
indeed, to expose themselves, the race would soon be annihilated by
their innumerable enemies. This circumstance has deceived the author
of the MS. account of those in Ceylon, who, speaking of the nests of
these insects in that island, which he describes as twelve feet high,
observes, that "they may be considered as a large city, which contains
a great number of houses, and these houses an infinite number of
cells or apartments:----these cells appear to me to communicate with
each other, but not the houses. I have convinced myself, by bringing
together the broken walls of one of the cavities of the nest or cone,
that it does not communicate with any other, nor _with the exterior_ of
the cone--a very curious circumstance, which I will not undertake to
explain. Other cavities communicate by a very narrow tunnel." By not
looking for subterranean communications, he was probably led into this
error.
You have before heard of their diligence in building. Does any accident
happen to their various structures, or are they dislodged from any
of their covered ways, they are still more active and expeditious in
repairing. Getting out of sight as soon as possible,--and they run as
fast or faster than any insect of their size,--in a single night they
will restore a gallery of three or four yards in length. If, attacking
the nest, you divide it in halves, leaving the royal chamber, and thus
lay open thousands of apartments, all will be shut up with their sheets
of clay by the next morning;--nay, even if the whole be demolished,
provided the king and the queen be left, every interstice between the
ruins, at which either cold or wet can possibly enter, will be covered,
and in a year the building will be raised nearly to its pristine size
and grandeur.
Besides building and repairing, a great deal of their time is
occupied in making necessary alterations in their mansion and its
approaches. The royal presence-chamber, as the female increases in
size, must be gradually enlarged, the nurseries must be removed to a
greater distance, the chambers and exterior of the nest receive daily
accessions to provide for a daily increasing population--and the
direction of their covered ways must often be varied, when the old
stock of provision is exhausted and new discovered.
The collection of provisions for the use of the colony is another
employment, which necessarily calls for incessant attention: these
to the naked eye appear like raspings of wood;--and they are, as
you have seen, great destroyers of timber, whether wrought or
unwrought:--but when examined by the microscope, they are found to
consist chiefly of gums and the inspissated juices of plants, which,
formed into little masses, are stored up in magazines made of clay.
When any one is bold enough to attack their nest and make a breach
in its walls, the labourers, who are incapable of fighting, retire
within, and give place to another description of its inhabitants, whose
office it is to defend the fortress when assailed by enemies:--these,
as observed before, are the neuters or soldiers. If the breach be
made in a slight part of the building, one of these comes out to
reconnoitre; he then retires and gives the alarm. Two or three others
next appear, scrambling as fast as they can one after the other;--to
these succeed a large body, who rush forth with as much speed as the
breach will permit, their numbers continually increasing during the
attack. It is not easy to describe the rage and fury by which these
diminutive heroes seem actuated. In their haste they frequently miss
their hold, and tumble down the sides of their hill: they soon,
however, recover themselves, and, being blind, bite every thing they
run against. If the attack proceeds, the bustle and agitation increase
to a ten-fold degree, and their fury is raised to its highest pitch.
Wo to him whose hands or legs they can come at! for they will make
their fanged jaws meet at the very first stroke, drawing as much blood
as will counterpoise their whole body, and never quitting their hold,
even though they are pulled limb from limb. The naked legs of the
Negroes expose them frequently to this injury; and the stockings of the
European are not sufficient to defend him.
On the other hand, if, after the first attack, you get a little
out of the way, giving them no further interruption, supposing the
assailant of their citadel is gone beyond their reach, in less than
half an hour they will retire into the nest; and before they have all
entered, you will see the labourers in motion, hastening in various
directions towards the breach, every one carrying in his mouth a mass
of mortar half as big as his body[47], ready tempered:--this mortar
is made of the finer parts of the gravel, which they probably select
in the subterranean pits or passages before described, which, worked
up to a proper consistence, hardens to the solid substance resembling
stone, of which their nests are constructed. As fast as they come up,
each sticks its burthen upon the breach; and this is done with so
much regularity and dispatch, that although thousands, nay millions,
are employed, they never appear to embarrass or interrupt one
another. By the united labours of such an infinite host of creatures
the wall soon rises and the breach is repaired.
While the labourers are thus employed, almost all the soldiers
have retired quite out of sight, except here and there one, who
saunters about amongst them, but never assists in the work. One in
particular places himself close to the wall which they are building;
and turning himself leisurely on all sides, as if to survey the
proceedings, appears to act the part of an overseer of the works.
Every now and then, at the interval of a minute or two, by lifting
up his head and striking with his forceps upon the wall of the nest,
he makes a particular noise, which is answered by a loud hiss from
all the labourers, and appears to be a signal for dispatch; for,
every time it is heard, they may be seen to redouble their pace, and
apply to their work with increased diligence. Renew the attack, and
this amusing scene will be repeated:--in rush the labourers, all
disappearing in a few seconds, and out march the military as numerous
and vindictive as before.--When all is once more quiet, the busy
labourers reappear, and resume their work, and the soldiers vanish.
Repeat the experiment a hundred times, and the same will always be
the result;--you will never find, be the peril or emergency ever so
great, that one order attempts to fight, or the other to work.
You have seen how solicitous the Termites are to move and work under
cover and concealed from observation; this, however, is not always
the case;--there is a species larger than _T. bellicosus_, whose
proceedings I have been principally describing, which Mr. Smeathman
calls the marching Termes (_Termes Viarum_). He was once passing
through a thick forest, when on a sudden a loud hiss, like that of
serpents, struck him with alarm. The next step produced a repetition
of the sound, which he then recognised to be that of white ants;
yet he was surprised at seeing none of their hills or covered ways.
Following the noise, to his great astonishment and delight he saw an
army of these creatures emerging from a hole in the ground; their
number was prodigious, and they marched with the utmost celerity.
When they had proceeded about a yard they divided into two columns,
chiefly composed of labourers, about fifteen abreast, following each
other in close order, and going straight forward. Here and there was
seen a soldier, carrying his vast head with apparent difficulty,
and looking like an ox in a flock of sheep, who marched on in the
same manner. At the distance of a foot or two from the columns many
other soldiers were to be seen, standing still or pacing about as if
upon the look-out, lest some enemy should suddenly surprise their
unwarlike comrades;--other soldiers, which was the most extraordinary
and amusing part of the scene, having mounted some plants and placed
themselves on the points of their leaves, elevated from ten to
fifteen inches from the ground, hung over the army marching below,
and by striking their forceps upon the leaf, produced at intervals
the noise before mentioned. To this signal the whole army returned a
hiss, and obeyed it by increasing their pace. The soldiers at these
signal-stations sat quite still during the intervals of silence,
except now and then making a slight turn of the head, and seemed
as solicitous to keep their posts as regular sentinels. The two
columns of this army united after continuing separate for twelve or
fifteen paces, having in no part been above three yards asunder, and
then descended into the earth by two or three holes. Mr. Smeathman
continued watching them for above an hour, during which time their
numbers appeared neither to increase nor diminish:--the soldiers,
however, who quitted the line of march and acted as sentinels, became
much more numerous before he quitted the spot. The larvæ and neuters
of this species are furnished with eyes.
The societies of _Termes lucifugus_, discovered by Latreille at
Bourdeaux, are very numerous; but instead of erecting artificial
nests, they make their lodgement in the trunks of pines and oaks,
where the branches diverge from the tree. They eat the wood the
nearest the bark, or the alburnum, without attacking the interior,
and bore a vast number of holes and irregular galleries. That part
of the wood appears moist, and is covered with little gelatinous
particles, not unlike gum-arabic. These insects seem to be furnished
with an acid of a very penetrating odour, which perhaps is useful
to them for softening the wood[48]. The soldiers in these societies
are as about one to twenty-five of the labourers[49]. The anonymous
author of the observations on the Termites of Ceylon seems to have
discovered a sentry-box in his nests. "I found," says he, "in a very
small cell in the middle of the solid mass, (a cell about half an
inch in height, and very narrow,) a larva with an enormous head.--Two
of these individuals were in the same cell:--one of the two seemed
placed as sentinel at the entrance of the cell. I amused myself
by forcing the door two or three times;--the sentinel immediately
appeared, and only retreated when the door was on the point to be
stopped up, which was done in three minutes by the labourers."
* * * * *
I hope this account has reconciled you in some degree to the
destructive Termites:--I shall next introduce you to social insects,
concerning most of which you have probably conceived a more
favourable opinion;--I mean those which constitute the second class
of perfect societies, whose workers are not larvæ, but neuters.
These all belong to the _Hymenoptera_ order of Linné:--there are
four kinds of insects in this order, (which you will find as fertile
in the instructors of mankind, as you have seen it to be in our
benefactors,) that, varying considerably from each other in their
proceedings as social animals, separately merit your attention:
namely, ants, wasps and hornets, humble-bees, and the hive-bee. I
begin with the first.
Full of interesting traits as are the history and economy of the
white-ants, and however earnestly they may induce you to wish you
could be a spectator of them, yet they scarcely exceed those of an
industrious tribe of insects, which are constantly passing under our
eye. The _ant_ has attracted universal notice, and been celebrated
from the earliest ages, both by sacred and profane writers, as a
pattern of prudence, foresight, wisdom, and diligence. Upon Solomon's
testimony in their favour I have enlarged before; and for those of
other ancient writers, I must refer you to the learned Bochart, who
has collected them in his _Hierozoicon_.
In reading what the ancients say on this subject, we must be careful,
however, to separate truth from error, or we shall attribute much
more to ants than of right belongs to them. Who does not smile when
he reads of ants that emulate the wolf in size, the dog in shape, the
lion in its feet, and the leopard in its skin; ants, whose employment
is to mine for gold, and from whose vengeance the furtive Indian is
constrained to fly on the swift camel's back[50]? But when we find
the writers of all nations and ages unite in affirming, that, having
deprived it of the power of vegetating, ants store up grain in their
nests, we feel disposed to give larger credit to an assertion, which,
at first sight, seems to savour more of fact than of fable, and does
not attribute more sagacity and foresight to these insects than
in other instances they are found to possess. Writers in general,
therefore, who have considered this subject, and some even of very
late date, have taken it for granted that the ancients were correct
in this notion. But when observers of nature began to examine the
manners and economy of these creatures more narrowly, it was found,
at least with respect to the European species of ants, that no such
hoards of grain were made by them, and, in fact, that they had no
magazines in their nests in which provisions of any kind were stored
up. It was therefore surmised that the ancients, observing them
carry about their _pupæ_, which in shape, size, and colour, not a
little resemble a grain of corn, and the ends of which they sometimes
pull open to let out the inclosed insect, mistook the one for the
other, and this action for depriving the grain of the corculum. Mr.
Gould, our countryman, was one of the first historians of the ant,
who discovered that they did not store up corn; and since his time
naturalists have generally subscribed to that opinion.
Till the manners of exotic ants are more accurately explored, it
would, however, be rash to affirm that no ants have magazines of
provisions; for although, during the cold of our winters in this
country, they remain in a state of torpidity, and have no need of
food, yet in warmer regions, during the rainy seasons, when they
are probably confined to their nests, a store of provisions may be
necessary for them. Even in northern climates, against wet seasons,
they may provide in this way for their sustenance and that of the
young brood, which, as Mr. Smeathman observes, are very voracious,
and cannot bear to be long deprived of their food; else why do ants
carry worms, living insects, and many other such things into their
nests? Solomon's lesson to the sluggard has been generally adduced
as a strong confirmation of the ancient opinion: it can, however,
only relate to the species of a warm climate, the habits of which,
as I have just observed, are probably different from those of a cold
one;--so that his words, as commonly interpreted, may be perfectly
correct and consistent with nature, and yet be not at all applicable
to the species that are indigenous to Europe. But I think, if
Solomon's words are properly considered, it will be found that this
interpretation has been fathered upon them, rather than fairly
deduced from them. He does not affirm that the ant which he proposes
to his sluggard as an example, laid up in her magazines stores of
grain: "Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise;
which, having neither captain, overseer, nor ruler, prepares her
bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest." These
words may very well be interpreted simply to mean, that the ant, with
commendable prudence and foresight, makes use of the proper seasons
to collect a supply of provision sufficient for her purposes. There
is not a word in them implying that she stores up grain or other
provision. She prepares her bread, and gathers her food,--namely,
such food as is suited to her,--in summer and harvest,--that is,
when it is most plentiful,--and thus shows her wisdom and prudence
by using the advantages offered to her. The words thus interpreted,
which they may be without any violence, will apply to our European
species as well as to those that are not indigenous.
I shall now bid farewell to the ancients, and proceed to lay before
you what the observations of modern authors have enabled me to add
to the history of ants:--the principal of these are Leeuwenhoek,
Swammerdam (who was the first that had recourse to artificial means
for observing their proceedings), Linné, Bonnet, and especially the
illustrious Swedish entomologist De Geer. Gould also, who, though
no systematical naturalist, was a man of sense and observation, has
thrown great light upon the history of ants, and anticipated several
of what are accounted the discoveries of more modern writers on
this subject[51]. Latreille's _Natural History of Ants_ is likewise
extremely valuable, not only as giving a systematic arrangement and
descriptions of the species, but as concentrating the accounts of
preceding authors, and adding several interesting facts _ex proprio
penu_. The great historiographer of ants, however, is M. P. Huber;
who has lately published a most admirable and interesting work upon
them, in which he has far outstripped all his predecessors.--Such are
the sources from which the following account of ants is principally
drawn, intermixed with which you will find some occasional
observations,--which your partiality to your friend may, perhaps,
induce you to think not wholly devoid of interest,--that it has been
my fortune to make.
The societies of ants, as also of other _Hymenoptera_, differ
from those of the Termites in having inactive larvæ and pupæ, the
neuters or workers combining in themselves both the military and
civil functions. Besides the helpless larvæ and pupæ, which have
no locomotive powers, these societies consist of females, males,
and workers. The office of the _females_, at their first exclusion
distinguished by a pair of ample wings, (which however, as you have
heard, they soon cast,) is the foundation of new colonies, and
the furnishing of a constant supply of eggs for the maintenance
of the population in the old nests as well as in the new. These
are usually the least numerous part of the community[52]. The
office of the _males_, which are also winged, and at the time of
swarming are extremely numerous, is merely the impregnation of the
females: after the season for this is passed, they die. Upon the
_workers_[53] devolves, except in nascent colonies, all the work,
as well as the defence of the community, of which they are the most
numerous portion. In some societies of ants the workers are of two
dimensions.--In the nests of _F. rufa_ and _flava_ such were observed
by Gould, the size of one exceeding that of the other about one
third[54]. (In my specimens, the large workers of _F. rufa_ are
nearly three times, and of _F. flava_ twice, the size of the small
ones.) All were equally engaged in the labours of the colony. Large
workers were also noticed by M. P. Huber in the nests of _Polyergus
rufescens_[55], but he could not ascertain their office.
Having introduced you to the individuals of which the associations
of ants consist, I shall now advert to the principal events of their
history, relating first the fates of the _males_ and _females_. In
the warm days that occur from the end of July to the beginning of
September, and sometimes later, the habitations of the various species
of ants may be seen to swarm with winged insects, which are the males
and females, preparing to quit for ever the scene of their nativity and
education. Every thing is in motion--and the silver wings contrasted
with the jet bodies which compose the animated mass, add a degree of
splendour to the interesting scene. The bustle increases, till at
length the males rise, as it were by a general impulse, into the air,
and the females accompany them. The whole swarm alternately rises and
falls with a slow movement to the height of about ten feet, the males
flying obliquely with a rapid zigzag motion, and the females, though
they follow the general movement of the column, appearing suspended in
the air, like balloons, seemingly with no individual motion, and having
their heads turned towards the wind.
Sometimes the swarms of a whole district unite their infinite myriads,
and, seen at a distance, produce an effect resembling the flashing
of an aurora borealis. Rising with incredible velocity in distinct
columns, they soar above the clouds. Each column looks like a kind
of slender net-work, and has a tremulous undulating motion, which
has been observed to be produced by the regular alternate rising and
falling just alluded to. The noise emitted by myriads and myriads of
these creatures does not exceed the hum of a single wasp. The slightest
zephyr disperses them; and if in their progress they chance to be over
your head, if you walk slowly on, they will accompany you, and regulate
their motions by yours. The females continue sailing majestically
in the centre of these numberless males, who are all candidates for
their favour, each till some fortunate lover darts upon her, and,
as the Roman youth did the Sabine virgins, drags his bride from the
sportive crowd, and the nuptials are consummated in mid-air; though
sometimes the union takes place on the summit of plants, but rarely in
the nests[56]. After this _danse de l'amour_ is celebrated, the males
disappear, probably dying, or becoming, with many of the females, the
prey of birds or fish[57]; for, since they do not return to the nest,
they cannot be destroyed, as some have supposed, like the drone bees,
by the neuters. That many, both males and females, become the prey of
fish, I am enabled to assert from my own observation.--In the beginning
of August 1812, I was going up the Orford river in Suffolk, in a
row-boat, in the evening, when my attention was caught by an infinite
number of winged ants, both males and females, at which the fish were
every where darting, floating alive upon the surface of the water.
While passing the river, these had probably been precipitated into it,
either by the wind, or by a heavy shower which had just fallen. And M.
Huber after the same event observed the earth strewed with females that
had lost their wings, all of which could not form colonies[58].
Captain Haverfield, R. N. gave me an account of an extraordinary
appearance of ants observed by him in the Medway, in the autumn
of 1814, when he was first-lieutenant of the Clorinde--which is
confirmed by the following letter addressed by the surgeon of that
ship, now Dr. Bromley, to Mr. MacLeay:
"In September 1814, being on the deck of the hulk to the Clorinde, my
attention was drawn to the water by the first-lieutenant (Haverfield)
observing there was something black floating down with the tide.
On looking with a glass, I discovered they were insects.--The boat
was sent, and brought a bucket full of them on board;--they proved
to be a large species of ant, and extended from the upper part of
Salt-pan reach out towards the Great Nore, a distance of five or six
miles. The column appeared to be in breadth eight or ten feet, and in
height about six inches, which I suppose must have been from their
resting one upon another." Purchas seems to have witnessed a similar
phenomenon on shore. "Other sorts (of ants)," says he, "there are
many, of which some become winged and fill the air with swarms, which
sometimes happens in England. On Bartholomew 1613 I was in the island
of Foulness on our Essex shore, where were such clouds of these
flying pismires, that we could no where fly from them, but they
filled our clothes; yea the floors of some houses where they fell
were in a manner covered with a black carpet of creeping ants; which
they say drown themselves about that time of the year in the sea[59]."
These ants were winged:--whence, in the first instance here related,
this immense column came was not ascertained. From the numbers here
agglomerated, one would think that all the ant-hills of the counties
of Kent and Surrey could scarcely have furnished a sufficient number
of males and females to form it.
When Colonel Sir Augustus Frazer, of the Horse Artillery, was
surveying on the 6th of October 1813 the scene of the battle of the
Pyrenees from the summit of the mountain called Pena de Aya, or Les
Quatre Couronnes, he and his friends were enveloped by a swarm of
ants, so numerous as entirely to intercept their view, so that they
were glad to remove to another station, in order to get rid of them.
The females that escape from the injury of the elements and their
various enemies, become the founders of new colonies, doing all the
work, as I have related in a former letter, that is usually done by
the neuters[60]. M. P. Huber has found incipient colonies, in which
were only a few workers engaged with their mother in the care of a
small number of larvæ; and M. Perrot, his friend, once discovered a
small nest, occupied by a solitary female, who was attending upon
four pupæ only. Such is the foundation and first establishment of
those populous nations of ants with which we every where meet.
But though the majority of females produced in a nest probably thus
desert it, all are not allowed this liberty. The prudent workers are
taught by their instinct that the existence of their community depends
upon the presence of a sufficient number of females. Some therefore
that are fecundated in or near the spot they forcibly detain, pulling
off their wings, and keeping them prisoners till they are ready to
lay their eggs, or are reconciled to their fate. De Geer in a nest
of _F. rufa_ observed that the workers compelled some females that
were come out of the nest, to re-enter it[61]; and from M. P. Huber
we learn that, being seized at the moment of fecundation, they are
conducted into the interior of the formicary, when they become entirely
dependent upon the neuters, who hanging pertinaciously to each leg
prevent their going out, but at the same time attend upon them with
the greatest care, feeding them regularly, and conducting them where
the temperature is suitable to them, but never quitting them a single
moment. By degrees these females become reconciled to their fate, and
lose all desire of making their escape;--their abdomen enlarges, and
they are no longer detained as prisoners, yet each is still attended
by a body-guard--a single ant, which always accompanies her, and
prevents her wants.--Its station is remarkable, it being mounted upon
her abdomen, with its posterior legs upon the ground. These sentinels
are constantly relieved: and to watch the moment when the female begins
the important work of oviposition, and carry off the eggs, of which she
lays four or five thousand or more in the course of the year, seems to
be their principal office.
When the female is acknowledged as a mother, the workers begin to pay
her a homage very similar to that which the bees render to their queen.
All press round her, offer her food, conduct her by her mandibles
through the difficult or steep passages of the formicary; nay, they
sometimes even carry her about their city;--she is then suspended upon
their jaws, the ends of which are crossed; and, being coiled up like
the tongue of a butterfly, she is packed so close as to incommode the
carrier but little. When she sets her down, others surround and caress
her, one after another tapping her on the head with their antennæ. "In
whatever apartment," says Gould, "a queen condescends to be present,
she commands obedience and respect. An universal gladness spreads
itself through the whole cell, which is expressed by particular acts of
joy and exultation. They have a particular way of skipping, leaping,
and standing upon their hind-legs, and prancing with the others. These
frolics they make use of, both to congratulate each other when they
meet, and to show their regard for the queen; some of them gently walk
over her, others dance round her; she is generally encircled with a
cluster of attendants, who, if you separate them from her, soon collect
themselves into a body, and inclose her in the midst[62]." Nay, even
if she dies, as if they were unwilling to believe it, they continue
sometimes for months the same attentions to her, and treat her with the
same courtly formality as if she were alive, and they will brush her
and lick her incessantly[63].
This homage paid by the workers to their queens, according to Gould,
is temporary and local;--when she has laid eggs in any cell, their
attentions, he observed, seemed to relax, and she became unsettled
and uneasy. In the summer months she is to be met with in various
apartments in the colony; and eggs also are to be seen in several
places, which induced him to believe that, having deposited a parcel
in one, she retires to another for the same purpose, thus frequently
changing her situation and attendants. As there are always a number
of lodgements void of eggs but full of ants, she is never at a loss
for an agreeable station and submissive retinue: and by the time she
has gone her rounds in this manner, the eggs first laid are brought
to perfection, and her old attendants are glad to receive her again.
Yet this inattention after oviposition is not invariable; the female
and neuters sometimes unite together in the same cell after the eggs
are laid. On this occasion the workers divide their attention; and
if you disturb them, some will run to the defence of their queen, as
well as of the eggs, which last, however, are the great objects of
their solicitude. This statement differs somewhat from M. Huber's; but
different species vary in their instincts, which will account for this
and similar dissonances in authors who have observed their proceedings.
Mr. Gould also noticed but very few females in ant-nests, sometimes
only one; but M. Huber, who had better opportunities, found several,
which he says live very peaceably together, showing none of that spirit
of rivalry so remarkable in the queen bee.
And here I must close my narrative of the life and adventures of male
and female ants; but, as it will be followed by a history of the
still more interesting proceedings of the _workers_, I think you will
not regret the exchange. I shall show these to you in many different
views, under each of which you will find fresh reason to admire
them and their wonderful instincts. My only fear will be lest you
should think the picture too highly coloured, and deem it incredible
that creatures so minute should so far exceed the larger animals in
wisdom, foresight, and sagacity, and make so near an approach in
these respects to man himself.--My facts, however, are derived from
authorities so respectable, that I think they will do away any bias
of this kind that you may feel in your mind[64].
I need not here repeat what I have said in a former letter concerning
the exemplary attention paid by these kind foster-mothers to
the young brood of their colonies; nor shall I enlarge upon the
building and nature of their habitations, which have been already
noticed[65]:--but, without either of these, I have matter enough
to fill the rest of this letter with interesting traits, while I
endeavour to teach you their language, to develop their affections
and passions, and to delineate their virtues;--while I show them
to you when engaged in war, and enable you to accompany them both
in their military expeditions and in their emigrations,--while I
make you a witness of their indefatigable industry and incessant
labours,--or invite you to be present, during their hours of
relaxation, at their sports and amusements.
That ants, though they are mute animals, have the means of
communicating to each other information of various occurrences, and
use a kind of language which is mutually understood, will appear
evident from the following facts.
If those at the surface of a nest are alarmed, it is wonderful in
how short a time the alarm spreads through the whole nest. It runs
from quarter to quarter; the greatest inquietude seems to possess
the community; and they carry with all possible dispatch their
treasures, the larvæ and pupæ, down to the lowest apartments. Amongst
those species of ants that do not go much from home, sentinels seem
to be stationed at the avenues of their city. Disturbing once the
little heaps of earth thrown up at the entrances into the nest of
_F. flava_, which is of this description, I was struck by observing
a single ant immediately come out, as if to see what was the matter,
and this three separate times.
The _F. herculanea_ inhabits the trunks of hollow trees on the
continent, for it has not yet been found in England, upon which
they are often passing to and fro. M. Huber observed, that when he
disturbed those that were at the greatest distance from the rest,
they ran towards them, and, striking their head against them,
communicated their cause of fear or anger,--that these, in their
turn, conveyed in the same way the intelligence to others, till the
whole colony was in a ferment, those neuters which were within the
tree running out in crowds to join their companions in the defence of
their habitation. The same signals that excited the courage of the
neuters produced fear in the males and females, which, as soon as the
news of the danger was thus communicated to them, retreated into the
tree as to an asylum.
The legs of one of this gentleman's artificial formicaries were plunged
into pans of water, to prevent the escape of the ants;--this proved a
source of great enjoyment to these little beings, for they are a very
thirsty race, and lap water like dogs[66]. One day, when he observed
many of them tippling very merrily, he was so cruel as to disturb them,
which sent most of the ants in a fright to the nest; but some more
thirsty than the rest continued their potations. Upon this, one of
those that had retreated returns to inform his thoughtless companions
of their danger; one he pushes with his jaws; another he strikes first
upon the belly, and then upon the breast; and so obliges three of them
to leave off their carousing, and march homewards; but the fourth, more
resolute to drink it out, is not to be discomfited, and pays not the
least regard to the kind blows with which his compeer, solicitous for
his safety, repeatedly belabours him:--at length, determined to have
his way, he seizes him by one of his hind-legs, and gives him a violent
pull:--upon this, leaving his liquor, the loiterer turns round, and
opening his threatening jaws with every appearance of anger, goes very
coolly to drinking again; but his monitor, without further ceremony,
rushing before him, seizes him by his jaws, and at last drags him off
in triumph to the formicary[67].
The language of ants, however, is not confined merely to giving
intelligence of the approach or presence of danger; it is also
co-extensive with all their other occasions for communicating their
ideas to each other.
Some, whose extraordinary history I shall soon relate to you, engage
in military expeditions, and often previously send out spies to
collect information. These, as soon as they return from exploring the
vicinity, enter the nest; upon which, as if they had communicated
their intelligence, the army immediately assembles in the suburbs
of their city, and begins its march towards that quarter whence the
spies had arrived. Upon the march, communications are perpetually
making between the van and the rear; and when arrived at the camp
of the enemy, and the battle begins, if necessary, couriers are
dispatched to the formicary for reinforcements[68].
If you scatter the ruins of an ant's nest in your apartment, you will
be furnished with another proof of their language. The ants will take a
thousand different paths, each going by itself, to increase the chance
of discovery; they will meet and cross each other in all directions,
and perhaps will wander long before they can find a spot convenient
for their reunion. No sooner does any one discover a little chink in
the floor, through which it can pass below, than it returns to its
companions, and, by means of certain motions of its antennæ, makes some
of them comprehend what route they are to pursue to find it, sometimes
even accompanying them to the spot; these, in their turn, become the
guides of others, till all know which way to direct their steps[69].
It is well known also, that ants give each other information when
they have discovered any store of provision. Bradley relates a
striking instance of this. A nest of ants in a nobleman's garden
discovered a closet, many yards within the house, in which conserves
were kept, which they constantly attended till the nest was
destroyed. Some in their rambles must have first discovered this
depôt of sweets, and informed the rest of it. It is remarkable that
they always went to it by the same track, scarcely varying an inch
from it, though they had to pass through two apartments; nor could
the sweeping and cleaning of the rooms discomfit them, or cause them
to pursue a different route[70].
Here may be related a very amusing experiment of Gould's. Having
deposited several colonies of ants (_F. fusca_) in flower-pots, he
placed them in some earthen pans full of water, which prevented then
from making excursions from their nest. When they had been accustomed
some days to this imprisonment, he fastened small threads to the
upper part of the pots, and extending them over the water pans fixed
them in the ground. The sagacious ants soon found out that by these
bridges they could escape from their moated castle. The discovery was
communicated to the whole society, and in a short time the threads
were filled with trains of busy workers passing to and fro[71].
Ligon's account of the ants in Barbadoes affords another most
convincing proof of this:--as he has told his tale in a very lively
and interesting manner, I shall give it nearly in his own words.
"The next of these moving little animals are ants or pismires; and
these are but of a small size, but great in industry; and that which
gives them means to attain to this end is, they have all one soul.
If I should say they are here or there, I should do them wrong,
for they are every where; under ground, where any hollow or loose
earth is; amongst the roots of trees; upon the bodies, branches,
leaves and fruit of all trees; in all places without the houses and
within; upon the sides, walls, windows, and roofs without; and on the
floors, side walls, ceilings, and windows within; tables, cupboards,
beds, stools, all are covered with them, so that they are a kind of
ubiquitaries.----We sometimes kill a cockroach, and throw him on the
ground; and mark what they will do with him: his body is bigger than
a hundred of them, and yet they will find the means to take hold of
him, and lift him up; and having him above ground, away they carry
him, and some go by as ready assistants, if any be weary; and some
are the officers that lead and show the way to the hole into which
he must pass; and if the vancouriers perceive that the body of the
cockroach lies across, and will not pass through the hole or arch
through which they mean to carry him, order is given, and the body
turned endwise, and this is done a foot before they come to the hole,
and that without any stop or stay; and this is observable, that they
never pull contrary ways.--A table being cleared with great care, by
way of experiment, of all the ants that were upon it, and some sugar
being put upon it, some, after a circuitous route, were observed to
arrive at it, when again departing without tasting the treasure, they
hastened away to inform their friends of their discovery, who upon
this came by myriads;--and when they are thickest upon the table,"
says he, "clap a large book (or any thing fit for that purpose) upon
them, so hard as to kill all that are under it; and when you have
done so, take away the book, and leave them to themselves but a
quarter of an hour, and when you come again, you shall find all those
bodies carried away. Other trials we make of their ingenuity, as
this:--Take a pewter dish, and fill it half full of water, into which
put a little gally-pot filled with sugar, and the ants will presently
find it and come upon the table; but when they perceive it environed
with water, they try about the brims of the dish where the gally-pot
is nearest; and there the most venturous amongst them commits himself
to the water, though he be conscious how ill a swimmer he is, and is
drowned in the adventure: the next is not warned by his example, but
ventures too, and is alike drowned; and many more, so that there is
a small foundation of their bodies to venture; and then they come
faster than ever, and so make a bridge of their own bodies[72]."
The fact being certain, that ants impart their ideas to each other,
we are next led to inquire by what means this is accomplished. It
does not appear that, like the bees, they emit any significative
sounds; their language, therefore, must consist of signs or gestures,
some of which I shall now detail. In communicating their fear or
expressing their anger, they run from one to another in a semicircle,
and strike with their head or jaws the trunk or abdomen of the ant
to which they mean to give information of any subject of alarm. But
those remarkable organs, their antennæ, are the principal instruments
of their speech, if I may so call it, supplying the place both of
voice and words. When the military ants before alluded to go upon
their expeditions, and are out of the formicary, previously to
setting off, they touch each other on the trunk with their antennæ
and forehead;--this is the signal for marching; for, as soon as any
one has received it, he is immediately in motion. When they have any
discovery to communicate, they strike with them those that they meet
in a particularly impressive manner.--If a hungry ant wants to be
fed, it touches with its two antennæ, moving them very rapidly, those
of the individual from which it expects its meal:--and not only ants
understand this language, but even Aphides and Cocci, which are the
milch kine of our little pismires, do the same, and will yield them
their saccharine fluid at the touch of these imperative organs. The
helpless larvæ also of the ants are informed by the same means when
they may open their mouths to receive their food.
Next to their language, and scarcely different from it, are the
modes by which they express their affections and aversions. Whether
ants, with man and some of the larger animals, experience any thing
like attachment to individuals, is not easily ascertained; but that
they feel the full force of the sentiment which we term patriotism,
or the love of the community to which they belong, is evident from
the whole series of their proceedings, which all tend to promote
the general good. Distress or difficulty falling upon any member of
their society, generally excites their sympathy, and they do their
utmost to relieve it. M. Latreille once cut off the antennæ of an
ant; and its companions, evidently pitying its sufferings, anointed
the wounded part with a drop of transparent fluid from their mouth:
and whoever attends to what is going forward in the neighbourhood of
one of their nests, will be pleased to observe the readiness with
which they seem disposed to assist each other in difficulties. When
a burthen is too heavy for one, another will soon come to ease it
of part of the weight; and if one is threatened with an attack, all
hasten to the spot, to join in repelling it.
The satisfaction they express at meeting after absence is very
striking, and gives some degree of individuality to their attachment.
M. Huber witnessed the gesticulations of some ants, originally
belonging to the same nest, that, having been entirely separated from
each other four months, were afterwards brought together. Though
this was equal to one-fourth of their existence as perfect insects,
they immediately recognised each other, saluted mutually with their
antennæ, and united once more to form one family.
They are also ever intent to promote each other's welfare, and ready
to share with their absent companions any good thing they may meet
with. Those that go abroad feed those which remain in the nest; and
if they discover any stock of favourite food, they inform the whole
community, as we have seen above, and teach them the way to it. M.
Huber, for a particular reason, having produced heat, by means of
a flambeau in a certain part of an artificial formicary, the ants
that happened to be in that quarter, after enjoying it for a time,
hastened to convey the welcome intelligence to their compatriots,
whom they even carried suspended upon their jaws (their usual mode
of transporting each other) to the spot, till hundreds might be seen
thus laden with their friends.
If ants feel the force of love, they are equally susceptible of the
emotions of anger; and when they are menaced or attacked, no insects
show a greater degree of it. Providence, moreover, has furnished
them with weapons and faculties which render it extremely formidable
to their insect enemies, and sometimes, as I have related on a
former occasion, a great annoyance to man himself[73]. Two strong
mandibles arm their mouth, with which they sometimes fix themselves
so obstinately to the object of their attack, that they will sooner
be torn limb from limb than let go their hold;--and after their
battles, the head of a conquered enemy may often be seen suspended
to the antennæ or legs of the victor,--a trophy of his valour,
which, however troublesome, he will be compelled to carry about
with him to the day of his death. Their abdomen is also furnished
with a poison-bag (_Ioterium_), in which is secreted a powerful and
venomous fluid, long celebrated in chemical researches, and once
called _formic acid_, though now considered a modification of the
_acetic_ and _malic_[74]; which, when their enemy is beyond the reach
of their mandibles (I speak here particularly of the hill-ant, or
_F. rufa_), standing erect on their hind-legs, they ejaculate from
their anus with considerable force, so that from the surface of the
nest ascends a shower of poison, exhaling a strong sulphureous odour,
sufficient to overpower or repel any insect or small animal. Such is
the fury of some species, that with the acid, according to Gould[75],
they sometimes partly eject, drawing it back however directly, the
poison-bag itself. If a stick be stuck into one of the nests of the
hill-ant, it is so saturated with the acid as to retain the scent for
many hours. A more formidable weapon arms the species of the genus
_Myrmica_, Latr.; for, besides the poison-bag, they are furnished
with a sting; and their aspect is also often rendered peculiarly
revolting, by the extraordinary length of their jaws, and by the
spines which defend their head and trunk.
But weapons without valour are of but little use; and this is
one distinguishing feature of our pygmy race. Their courage and
pertinacity are unconquerable, and often sublimed into the most
inconceivable rage and fury. It makes no difference to them whether
they attack a mite or an elephant; and man himself instills no terror
into their warlike breasts. Point your finger towards any individual
of _F. rufa_,--instead of running away, it instantly faces about,
and, that it may make the most of itself, stiffening its legs into a
nearly straight line, it gives its body the utmost elevation it is
capable of; and thus
"Collecting all its might dilated stands"
prepared to repel your attack. Put your finger a little nearer,
it immediately opens its jaws to bite you, and rearing upon its
hind-legs bends its abdomen between them, to ejaculate its venom into
the wound[76].
This angry people, so well armed and so courageous, we may readily
imagine are not always at peace with their neighbours; causes of
dissension may arise to light the flame of war between the inhabitants
of nests not far distant from each other. To these little bustling
creatures a square foot of earth is a territory worth contending
for;--their droves of Aphides equally valuable with the flocks and
herds that cover our plains; and the body of a fly or a beetle, or a
cargo of straws and bits of stick, an acquisition as important as the
treasures of a Lima fleet to our seamen. Their wars are usually between
nests of different species; sometimes, however, those of the same,
when so near as to interfere with and incommode each other, have their
battles; and with respect to ants of one species, _Myrmica rubra_,
combats occasionally take place, contrary to the general habits of the
tribe of ants, between those of the same nest. I shall give you some
account of all these conflicts, beginning with the last. But I must
first observe, that the only warriors amongst our ants are the neuters
or workers; the males and females being very peaceable creatures, and
always glad to get out of harm's way.
The wars of the red ant (_M. rubra_) are usually between a small number
of the citizens; and the object, according to Gould, is to get rid of
a useless member of the community (it does not argue much in favour
of the humanity of this species if it be by sickness that this member
is disabled), rather than any real civil contest. "The red colonies,"
says this author, "are the only ones I could ever observe to feed upon
their own species. You may frequently discern a party of from five or
six to twenty surrounding one of their own kind, or even fraternity,
and pulling it to pieces. The ant they attack is generally feeble, and
of a languid complexion, occasioned perhaps by some disorder or other
accident[77]." I once saw one of these ants dragged out of the nest
by another, without its head; it was still alive, and could crawl
about. A lively imagination might have fancied that this poor ant was
a criminal, condemned by a court of justice to suffer the extreme
sentence of the law. It was more probably, however, a champion that had
been decapitated in an unequal combat, unless we admit Gould's idea,
and suppose it to have suffered because it was an unprofitable member
of the community[78]. At another time I found three individuals that
were fighting with great fury, chained together by their mandibles; one
of these had lost two of the legs of one side, yet it appeared to walk
well, and was as eager to attack and seize its opponents, as if it was
unhurt. This did not look like languor or sickness.
The wars of ants that are not of the same species take place usually
between those that differ in size; and the great endeavouring to
oppress the small are nevertheless often outnumbered by them, and
defeated. Their battles have long been celebrated, and the date
of them, as if it were an event of the first importance, has been
formally recorded. Æneas Sylvius, after giving a very circumstantial
account of one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small
species on the trunk of a pear-tree, gravely states, "This action was
fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence
of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the
whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity!" A similar
engagement between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus,
in which the small ones being victorious are said to have buried the
bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a
prey to the birds. This event happened previous to the expulsion of
the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden[79].
M. P. Huber is the only modern author that appears to have been
witness to these combats. He tells us that, when the great attack the
small, they seek to take them by surprise, (probably to avoid their
fastening themselves to their legs,) and, seizing them by the upper
part of the body, they strangle them with their mandibles; but when
the small have time to foresee the attack, they give notice to their
companions, who rush in crowds to their succour. Sometimes, however,
after suffering a signal defeat, the smaller species are obliged to
shift their quarters, and to seek an establishment more out of the
way of danger. In order to cover their march, many small bodies are
then posted at a little distance from the nest. As soon as the large
ants approach the camp, the foremost sentinels instantly fly at
them with the greatest rage, a violent struggle ensues, multitudes
of their friends come to their assistance, and, though no match for
their enemies singly, by dint of numbers they prevail, and the giant
is either slain or led captive to the hostile camp. The species
whose proceedings M. Huber observed, were _F. herculanea_ and _F.
sanguinea_, neither of which have yet been discovered in Britain[80].
But if you would see more numerous armies engaged, and survey war
in all its forms, you must witness the combats of ants of the same
species, you must go into the woods where the hill-ant of Gould
(_F. rufa_) erects its habitations. There you will sometimes behold
populous and rival cities, like Rome and Carthage, as if they had
vowed each other's destruction, pouring forth their myriads by the
various roads that, like rays, diverge on all sides from their
respective metropolises, to decide by an appeal to arms the fate of
their little world. As the exploits of frogs and mice were the theme
of Homer's muse, so, were I gifted like him, might I celebrate on
this occasion the exhibition of Myrmidonian valour; but, alas! I am
Davus, not Œdipus; you must therefore rest contented, if I do my best
in plain prose; and I trust you will not complain if, being unable to
ascertain the name of any one of my heroes, my _Myrmidonomachia_ be
perfectly anonymous.
Figure to yourself two of these cities equal in size and population,
and situated about a hundred paces from each other; observe their
countless numbers, equal to the population of two mighty empires.
The whole space which separates them for the breadth of twenty-four
inches appears alive with prodigious crowds of their inhabitants. The
armies meet midway between their respective habitations, and there
join battle. Thousands of champions, mounted on more elevated spots,
engage in single combat, and seize each other with their powerful
jaws; a still greater number are engaged on both sides in taking
prisoners, which make vain efforts to escape, conscious of the cruel
fate which awaits them when arrived at the hostile formicary. The
spot where the battle most rages is about two or three square feet
in dimensions: a penetrating odour exhales on all sides,--numbers
of ants are here lying dead covered with venom,--others, composing
groups and chains, are hooked together by their legs or jaws, and
drag each other alternately in contrary directions. These groups are
formed gradually. At first a pair of combatants seize each other,
and rearing upon their hind-legs mutually spirt their acid, then
closing they fall and wrestle in the dust. Again recovering their
feet, each endeavours to drag off his antagonist. If their strength
be equal, they remain immoveable, till the arrival of a third gives
one the advantage. Both, however, are often succoured at the same
time, and the battle still continues undecided--others take part on
each side, till chains are formed of six, eight, or sometimes ten,
all hooked together and struggling pertinaciously for the mastery:
the equilibrium remains unbroken, till a number of champions from the
same nest arriving at once, compel them to let go their hold, and
the single combats recommence. At the approach of night, each party
gradually retreats to its own city: but before the following dawn the
combat is renewed with redoubled fury, and occupies a greater extent
of ground. These daily fights continue till, violent rains separating
the combatants, they forget their quarrel, and peace is restored.
Such is the account given by M. Huber of a battle he witnessed. In
these engagements, he observes, their fury is so wrought up, that
nothing can divert them from their purpose. Though he was close to
them examining their proceedings, they paid not the least attention
to him, being absorbed by one sole object, that of finding an enemy
to attack. What is most wonderful in this history, though all are of
the same make, colour, and scent, every ant seemed to know those of
his own party; and if by mistake one was attacked, it was immediately
discovered by the assailant, and caresses succeeded to blows. Though
all was fury and carnage in the space between the two nests, on
the other side the paths were full of ants going to and fro on the
ordinary business of the society, as in a time of peace; and the
whole formicary exhibited an appearance of order and tranquillity,
except that on the quarter leading to the field of battle crowds
might always be seen, either marching to reinforce the army of their
compatriots, or returning home with the prisoners they had taken[81],
which it is to be feared are the devoted victims of a cannibal feast.
Having, I apprehend, satiated you with the fury and carnage of
Myrmidonian wars, I shall next bring forward a scene still more
astonishing, which at first, perhaps, you will be disposed to regard
as the mere illusion of a lively imagination. What will you say when
I tell you that certain ants are affirmed to sally forth from their
nests on predatory expeditions, for the singular purpose of procuring
_slaves_ to employ in their domestic business; and that these ants
are usually a ruddy race, while their slaves themselves are black? I
think I see you here throw down my letter and exclaim--"What! ants
turned slave-dealers! This is a fact so extraordinary and improbable,
and so out of the usual course of nature, that nothing but the most
powerful and convincing evidence shall induce me to believe it." In
this I perfectly approve your caution; such a solecism in nature
ought not to be believed till it has undergone the ordeal of a most
thorough investigation. Unfortunately in this country we have not the
means of satisfying ourselves by ocular demonstration, since none of
the slave-dealing ants appear to be natives of Britain. We must be
satisfied, therefore, with weighing the evidence of others. Hear what
M. P. Huber, the discoverer of this almost incredible deviation of
nature from her general laws, has advanced to convince the world of
the accuracy of his statement, and you will, I am sure, allow that he
has thrown over his history a colouring of verisimilitude, and that
his appeal to testimony is in a very high degree satisfactory.
"My readers," says he, "will perhaps be tempted to believe that I have
suffered myself to be carried away by the love of the marvellous,
and that, in order to impart greater interest to my narration, I
have given way to an inclination to embellish the facts that I have
observed. But the more the wonders of nature have attractions for me,
the less do I feel inclined to alter them by a mixture of the reveries
of imagination. I have sought to divest myself of every illusion and
prejudice, of the ambition of saying new things, of the prepossessions
often attached to perceptions too rapid, the love of system, and the
like. And I have endeavoured to keep myself, if I may so say, in a
disposition of mind perfectly neuter, and ready to admit all facts, of
whatever nature they might be, that patient observation should confirm.
Amongst the persons whom I have taken as witnesses to the discovery of
mixed ant-hills, I can cite a distinguished philosopher (Prof. Jurine),
who was desirous of verifying their existence by examining himself the
two species united[82]."
He afterwards appeals to nature, and calls upon all who doubt to
repeat his experiments, which he is sure will soon satisfy them:--a
satisfaction which, as I have just observed, in this country we
cannot receive, for want of the slave-making species.--And now to
begin my history.
There are two species of ants which engage in these excursions,
_Polyergus rufescens_ and _Formica sanguinea_: but they do not, like
the African kings, make slaves of adults, their sole object being
to carry off the helpless infants of the colony which they attack,
the larvæ and pupæ; these they educate in their own nests, till they
arrive at their perfect state, when they undertake all the business
of the society[83]. In the following account I shall chiefly confine
myself to what Huber relates of the first of these species, and
conclude my extracts with his history of an expedition of the latter
to procure slaves.
The rufescent ants[84] do not leave their nests to go upon these
expeditions, which last about ten weeks, till the males are ready to
emerge into the perfect state: and it is very remarkable, that if
any individuals attempt to stray abroad earlier, they are detained
by their slaves, who will not suffer them to proceed. A wonderful
provision of the Creator to prevent the black colonies from being
pillaged when they contain only male and female brood, which would
be their total destruction, without being any benefit to their
assailants, to whom neuters alone are useful.
Their time of sallying forth is from two in the afternoon till five,
but more generally a little before five: the weather, however, must
be fine, and the thermometer must stand at above 36° in the shade.
Previously to marching there is reason to think that they send out
scouts to explore the vicinity; upon whose return they emerge from
their subterranean city, directing their course to the quarter from
which the scouts came. They have various preparatory signals, such
as pushing each other with the mandibles or forehead, or playing
with the antennæ, the object of which is probably to excite their
martial ardour, to give the word for marching, or to indicate the
route they are to take. The advanced guard usually consists of eight
or ten ants; but no sooner do these get beyond the rest, than they
move back, wheeling round in a semicircle, and mixing with the main
body, while others succeed to their station. They have "_no captain_,
_overseer_, _or ruler_," as Solomon observes, their army being
composed entirely of neuters, without a single female: thus all in
their turns take their place at the head, and then retreating towards
the rear, make room for others. This is the usual order of their
march; and the object of it may be to communicate intelligence more
readily from one part of the column to another.
When winding through the grass of a meadow they have proceeded to
thirty feet or more from their own habitation, they disperse; and,
like dogs with their noses, explore the ground with their antennæ
to detect the traces of the game they are pursuing. The negro
formicary, the object of their search, is soon discovered; some of
the inhabitants are usually keeping guard at the avenues, which
dart upon the foremost of their assailants with inconceivable fury.
The alarm increasing, crowds of its swarthy inhabitants rush forth
from every apartment; but their valour is exerted in vain; for the
besiegers, precipitating themselves upon them, by the ardour of their
attack compel them to retreat within, and seek shelter in the lowest
story; great numbers entering with them at the gates, while others
with their mandibles make a breach in the walls, through which the
victorious army marches into the besieged city. In a few minutes, by
the same passages, they as hastily evacuate it, each carrying off in
its mouth a larva or pupa which it has seized in spite of its unhappy
guardians. On their return home with their spoil, they pursue exactly
the route by which they went to the attack. Their success on these
expeditions is rather the result of their impetuosity, by which they
damp the courage of the negroes, than of their superior strength,
though they are a larger animal; for sometimes a very small body of
them, not more than 150, has been known to succeed in their attack
and to carry off their booty[85].
When from their proximity they are more readily to be come at than
those of the negroes, they sometimes assault with the same view the
nest of another species of ant, which I shall call the miners (_F.
cunicularia_). This species being more courageous than the other, on
this account the rufescent host marches to the attack in closer order
than usual, moving with astonishing rapidity. As soon as they begin
to enter their habitation, myriads of the miners rushing out fall
upon them with great fury; while others, well aware of their purpose,
making a passage through the midst of them, carry off in their mouth
the larvæ and pupæ. The surface of the nest thus becomes the scene
of an obstinate conflict, and the assailants are often deprived of
the prey which they had seized. The miners dart upon them, fight them
foot to foot, dispute every inch of their territory, and defend their
progeny with unexampled courage and rage. When the rufescents, laden
with pillage, retire, they do it in close order--a precaution highly
necessary, since their valiant enemies, pursuing them, impede their
progress for a considerable distance from their residence.
During these combats the pillaged ant-hill presents in miniature the
spectacle of a besieged city; hundreds of its inhabitants may be seen
making their escape, and carrying off in different directions, to a
place of security, some the young brood, and others their females
that are newly excluded: but when the danger is wholly passed, they
bring them back to their city, the gates of which they barricade, and
remain in great numbers near them to guard the entrance.
_Formica sanguinea_, as I observed above, is another of the
slave-making ants; and its proceedings merit separate notice, since
they differ considerably from those of the rufescents. They construct
their nests under hedges of a southern aspect, and likewise attack
the hills both of the negroes and miners. On the 15th of July, at ten
in the morning, Huber observed a small band of these ants sallying
forth from their formicary, and marching rapidly to a neighbouring
nest of negroes, around which it dispersed. The inhabitants, rushing
out in crowds, attacked them and took several prisoners: those that
escaped advanced no further, but appeared to wait for succours; small
brigades kept frequently arriving to reinforce them, which emboldened
them to approach nearer to the city they had blockaded; upon this
their anxiety to send couriers to their own nest seemed to increase:
these spreading a general alarm, a large reinforcement immediately
set out to join the besieging army; yet even then they did not begin
the battle. Almost all the negroes, coming out of their fortress,
formed themselves in a body about two feet square in front of it, and
there expected the enemy. Frequent skirmishes were the prelude to the
main conflict, which was begun by the negroes. Long before success
appeared dubious they carried off their pupæ, and heaped them up at
the entrance to their nest, on the side opposite to that on which the
enemy approached. The young females also fled to the same quarter.
The sanguine ants at length rush upon the negroes, and attacking them
on all sides, after a stout resistance the latter, renouncing all
defence, endeavour to make off to a distance with the pupæ they have
heaped up:--the host of assailants pursues, and strives to force from
them these objects of their care. Many also enter the formicary, and
begin to carry off the young brood that are left in it. A continued
chain of ants engaged in this employment extends from nest to nest,
and the day and part of the night pass before all is finished. A
garrison being left in the captured city, on the following morning
the business of transporting the brood is renewed. It often happens
(for this species of ant loves to change its habitation) that the
conquerors emigrate with all their family to the acquisition which
their valour has gained. All the incursions of _F. sanguinea_ take
place in the space of a month, and they make only five or six in the
year. They will sometimes travel 150 paces to attack a negro colony.
After reading this account of expeditions undertaken by ants for
so extraordinary a purpose, you will be curious to know how the
slaves are treated in the nests of these marauders--whether they
live happily, or labour under an oppressive yoke. You must recollect
that they are not carried off, like our negroes, at an age when the
_amor patriæ_ and all the charities of life which bind them to their
country, kindred and friends, are in their full strength, but in
what may be called the helpless days of infancy, or in their state
of repose, before they can have formed any associations or imbibed
any notions that render one place and society more dear to them than
another. Preconceived ideas, therefore, do not exist to influence
their happiness, which must altogether depend upon the treatment
which they experience at the hands of their new masters. Here the
goodness of Providence is conspicuous; which, although it has gifted
these creatures with an instinct so extraordinary, and seemingly so
unnatural, has not made it a source of misery to the objects of it.
You will here, perhaps, imagine that I have not sufficiently taken
into consideration the anxiety and privations undergone by the poor
neuters, in beholding those foster-children, for which they have all
along manifested such tender solicitude, thus violently snatched
from them: but when you reflect that they are the common property
of the whole colony, and that, consequently, there can scarcely be
any separate attachment to particular individuals, you will admit
that, after the fright and horror of the conflict are over, and
their enemies have retreated, they are not likely to experience
the poignant affliction felt by parents when deprived of their
children; especially when you further consider, that most probably
some of their brood are rescued from the general pillage; or at any
rate their females are left uninjured, to restore the diminished
population of their colonies, and to supply them with those objects
of attention, the larvæ, &c. so necessary to that development of
their instincts in which consists their happiness.
But to return to the point from which I digressed.--The negro and
miner ants suffer no diminution of happiness, and are exposed
to no unusual hardships and oppression in consequence of being
transplanted into a foreign nest. Their life is passed in much the
same employments as would have occupied it in their native residence.
They build or repair the common dwelling; they make excursions to
collect food; they attend upon the females; they feed them and the
larvæ; and they pay the necessary attention to the daily sunning of
the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ. Besides this, they have also to feed their
masters and to carry them about the nest. This you will say is a
serious addition to the ordinary occupations of their own colonies:
but when you consider the greater division of labour in these mixed
societies, which sometimes unite both negroes and miners in the same
dwelling, so that three distinct races live together, from their vast
numbers so far exceeding those of the native nest, you will not think
this too severe employment for so industrious an animal.
But you will here ask, perhaps--"Do the masters take no part in these
domestic employments? At least, surely, they direct their slaves, and
see that they keep to their work?"--No such thing, I assure you--the
sole motive for their predatory excursions seems to be mere laziness
and hatred of labour. Active and intrepid as they are in the field,
at all other times they are the most helpless animals that can be
imagined;--unwilling to feed themselves, or even to walk, their
indolence exceeds that of the sloth itself. So entirely dependent,
indeed, are they upon their negroes for every thing, that upon some
occasions the latter seem to be the masters, and exercise a kind of
authority over them. They will not suffer them, for instance, to
go out before the proper season, or alone; and if they return from
their excursions without their usual booty, they give them a very
indifferent reception, showing their displeasure, which however soon
ceases, by attacking them; and when they attempt to enter the nest,
dragging them out. To ascertain what they would do when obliged to
trust to their own exertions, Huber shut up thirty of the rufescent
ants in a glazed box, supplying them with larvæ and pupæ of their
own kind, with the addition of several negro pupæ, excluding very
carefully all their slaves, and placing some honey in a corner of
their prison. Incredible as it may seem, they made no attempt to
feed themselves: and though at first they paid some attention to
their larvæ, carrying them here and there, as if too great a charge
they soon laid them down again; most of them died of hunger in less
than two days; and the few that remained alive appeared extremely
weak and languid. At length, commiserating their condition, he
admitted a single negro; and this little active creature by itself
re-established order--made a cell in the earth; collected the larvæ
and placed them in it; assisted the pupæ that were ready to be
developed; and preserved the life of the neuter rufescents that still
survived. What a picture of beneficent industry, contrasted with the
baleful effects of sloth, does this interesting anecdote afford!
Another experiment which he tried made the contrast equally striking.
He put a large portion of one of these mixed colonies into a woollen
bag, in the mouth of which he fixed a small tube of wood, glazed at
the top, which at the other end was fitted to the entrance of a kind
of hive. The second day the tube was crowded with negroes going and
returning:--the indefatigable diligence and activity manifested by
them in transporting the young brood and their rufescent masters,
whose bodies were suspended upon their mandibles, was astonishing.
These last took no active part in the busy scene, while their slaves
showed the greatest anxiety about them, generally carrying them into
the hive; and if they sometimes contented themselves with depositing
them at the entrance of the tube, it was that they might use greater
dispatch in fetching the rest. The rufescent when thus set down
remained for a moment coiled up without motion, and then leisurely
unrolling itself, looked all around, as if it was quite at a loss
what direction to take;--it next went up to the negroes, and by the
play of its antennæ seemed to implore their succour, till one of them
attending to it conducted it into the hive.
Beings so entirely dependent, as these masters are upon their slaves,
for every necessary, comfort and enjoyment of their life, can
scarcely be supposed to treat them with rigour or unkindness:--so far
from this, it is evident from the preceding details, that they rather
look up to them, and are in some degree under their control.
The above observations, with respect to the indolence of our
slave-dealers, relate principally to the _rufescent_ species; for
the _sanguine_ ants are not altogether so listless and helpless;
they assist their negroes in the construction of their nests, they
collect their sweet fluid from the Aphides; and one of their most
usual occupations is to lie in wait for a small species of ant, on
which they feed; and when their nest is menaced by an enemy, they
show their value for these faithful servants by carrying them down
into the lowest apartments, as to a place of the greatest security.
Sometimes even the rufescents 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[86], 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 pupæ 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, however, 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[87].
Unparalleled and unique in the animal kingdom as this history 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.
The loves of the ants and the aphides (for these last are the kine in
question) have long been celebrated; and that there is a connexion
between them you may at any time, in the proper season, convince
yourself; for you will always find the former very busy on those
trees and plants on which the latter abound: and if you examine more
closely, you will discover that their object in thus attending upon
them is to obtain the saccharine fluid, which may well be denominated
their milk[88], that they secrete.
This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, issues
in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not only by the
ordinary passage, but also by two setiform tubes placed, one on each
side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark,
is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap, which, after
it has passed through the system, they keep continually discharging
by these organs. When no ants attend them, by a certain jerk of the
body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a
distance: but when the ants are at hand, watching the moment when the
aphides emit their fluid, they seize and suck it down immediately.
This, however, is the least of their talents; for they absolutely
possess the art of making them yield it at their pleasure; or, in
other words, of milking them. On this occasion their antennæ are
their fingers; with these they pat the abdomen of the aphis on each
side alternately, moving them very briskly; a little drop of fluid
immediately appears, which the ant takes into its mouth, one species
(_Myrmica rubra_) conducting it with its antennæ, which are somewhat
swelled at the end. When it has thus milked one, it proceeds to
another, and so on, till being satiated it returns to the nest.
Not only the aphides yield this repast to the ants, but also the
_Cocci_, with whom they have recourse to similar manœuvres, and with
equal success; only in this case the movement of the antennæ over
their body may be compared to the thrill of the finger over the keys
of a piano-forte.
But you are not arrived at the most singular part of this
history,--that ants make a _property_ of these cows, for the possession
of which they contend with great earnestness, and use every means to
keep them to themselves. Sometimes they seem to claim a right to the
aphides that inhabit the branches of a tree or the stalks of a plant;
and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with them, they
endeavour to drive them away, and may be seen running about in a
great bustle, and exhibiting every symptom of inquietude and anger.
Sometimes, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their aphides in
their mouth, they generally keep guard round them, and when the branch
is conveniently situated, they have recourse to an expedient still more
effectual to keep off interlopers,--they inclose it in a tube of earth
or other materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock near
their nest, and often communicating with it.
The greatest cow-keeper of all the ants, is one to be met with in most
of our pastures, residing in hemispherical formicaries, which are
sometimes of considerable diameter. I mean the yellow ant of Gould (_F.
flava_). This species, which is not fond of roaming from home, and
likes to have all its conveniences within reach, usually collects in
its nest a large herd of a kind of Aphis, that derives its nutriment
from the roots of grass and other plants (_Aphis radicum_); these
it transports from the neighbouring roots, probably by subterranean
galleries, excavated for the purpose, leading from the nest in all
directions[89]; and thus, without going out, it has always at hand a
copious supply of food. These creatures share its care and solicitude
equally with its own offspring. To the eggs it pays particular
attention, moistening them with its tongue, carrying them in its mouth
with the utmost tenderness, and giving them the advantage of the sun.
This last fact I state from my own observation; for once upon opening
one of these ant-hills early in the spring, on a sunny day, I observed
a parcel of these eggs, which I knew by their black colour, very near
the surface of the nest. My attack put the ants into a great ferment,
and they immediately began to carry these interesting objects down into
the interior of the nest. It is of great consequence to them to forward
the hatching of these eggs as much as possible, in order to ensure an
early source of food for their colony; and they had doubtless in this
instance brought them up to the warmest part of their dwelling with
this view. M. Huber, in a nest of the same ant, at the foot of an oak,
once found the eggs of _Aphis Quercûs_.
Our yellow ants are equally careful of their Aphides after they
are hatched, when their nest is disturbed conveying them into
the interior, fighting fiercely for them if the inhabitants of
neighbouring formicaries, as is sometimes the case, attempt to make
them their prey; and carrying them about in their mouths to change
their pasture, or for some other purpose. When you consider that from
them they receive almost the whole nutriment both of themselves and
larvæ, you will not wonder at their anxiety about them, since the
wealth and prosperity of the community is in proportion to the number
of their cattle. Several other species keep Aphides in their nests,
but none in such numbers as those of which I am speaking[90].
When the population exceeds the produce of a country, or its
inhabitants suffer oppression, or are not comfortable in it,
emigrations frequently take place, and colonies issue forth to settle
in other parts of the globe; and sometimes whole nations leave
their own country, either driven to this step by their enemies, or
excited by cupidity to take possession of what appears to them a
more desirable residence. These motives operate strongly on some
insects of the social tribes.--Bees and ants are particularly
influenced by them. The former, confined in a narrow hive, when their
society becomes too numerous to be contained conveniently in it,
must necessarily send forth the redundant part of their population
to seek for new quarters; and the latter--though they usually can
enlarge their dwelling to any dimensions which their numbers may
require, and therefore do not send forth colonies, unless we may
distinguish by that name the departure of the males and females from
the nest--are often disgusted with their present habitation, and seek
to establish themselves in a new one:--either the near neighbourhood
of enemies of their own species; annoyance from frequent attacks of
man or other animals; their exposure to cold or wet from the removal
of some species of shelter; or the discovery of a station better
circumstanced or more abundant in aphides;--all these may operate as
inducements to them to change their residence. That this is the case
might be inferred from the circumstance noticed by Gould[91], which
I have also partly witnessed myself, that they sometimes transport
their young brood to a considerable distance from their home. But M.
Huber, by his interesting observations, has placed this fact beyond
all controversy; and his history of their emigrations is enlivened by
some traits so singular, that I am impatient to relate them to you.
They concern chiefly the great hill-ant (_F. rufa_), though several
other species occasionally emigrate.
Some of the neuters having found a spot which they judge convenient
for a new habitation, apparently without consulting the rest of the
society, determine upon an emigration, and thus they compass their
intention: The first step is to raise recruits:--with this view they
eagerly accost several fellow citizens of their own order, caress
them with their antennæ, lead them by their mandibles, and evidently
appear to propose the journey to them. If they seem disposed to
accompany them, the recruiting officer, for so he may be called,
prepares to carry off his recruit, who, suspending himself upon his
mandibles, hangs coiled up spirally under his neck;--all this passes
in an amicable manner after mutual salutations. Sometimes, however,
the recruiter takes the other by surprise, and drags him from the
ant-hill without giving him time to consider or resist. When arrived
at the proposed habitation, the suspended ant uncoils itself, and,
quitting its conductor, becomes a recruiter in its turn. The pair
return to the old nest, and each carries off a fresh recruit, which
being arrived at the spot joins in the undertaking:--thus the number
of recruiters keeps progressively increasing, till the path between
the new and the old city is full of goers and comers, each of the
former laden with a recruit. What a singular and amusing scene is
then exhibited of the little people thus employed! When an emigration
of a rufescent colony is going forward, the negroes are seen carrying
their masters: and the contrast of the red with the black renders
it peculiarly striking. The little turf-ants (_Myrmica? cæspitum_)
upon these occasions carry their recruits uncoiled, with their head
downwards and their body in the air.
This extraordinary scene continues several days; but when all the
neuters are acquainted with the road to the new city, the recruiting
ceases. As soon as a sufficient number of apartments to contain
them are prepared, the young brood, with the males and females,
are conveyed thither, and the whole business is concluded. When
the spot thus selected for their residence is at a considerable
distance from the old nest, the ants construct some intermediate
receptacles, resembling small ant-hills, consisting of a cavity
filled with fragments of straw and other materials, in which they
form several cells; and here at first they deposit their recruits,
males, females, and brood, which they afterwards conduct to the final
settlement. These intermediate stations sometimes become permanent
nests, which however maintain a connexion with the capital city[92].
While the recruiting is proceeding it appears to occasion no sensation
in the original nest; all goes on in it as usual, and the ants that
are not yet recruited pursue their ordinary occupations: whence it is
evident that the change of station is not an enterprise undertaken by
the whole community. Sometimes many neuters set about this business at
the same time, which gives a short existence (for in the end they all
reunite into one) to many separate formicaries. If the ants dislike
their new city, they quit it for a third, and even for a fourth: and
what is remarkable, they will sometimes return to their original
one before they are entirely settled in the new station; when the
recruiting goes in opposite directions, and the pairs pass each other
on the road. You may stop the emigration for the present, if you can
arrest the first recruiter, and take away his recruit[93].
I shall now relate to you some other portions of Myrmidonian History,
which, though perhaps not so striking and wonderful as the preceding
details, are not devoid of interest, and will serve to exemplify
their incredible diligence, labour, and ingenuity.
In this country it is commonly in March, earlier or later according
to the season, that ants first make their appearance, and they
continue their labours till the middle or latter end of October. They
emerge usually from their subterranean winter-quarters on some sunny
day; when, assembling in crowds on the surface of the formicary,
they may be observed in continual motion, walking incessantly over
it and one another, without departing from home; as if their object,
before they resumed their employments, was to habituate themselves
to the action of the air and sun[94]. This preparation requires a
few days, and then the business of the year commences. The earliest
employment of ants is most probably to repair the injuries which
their habitation has received during their state of inactivity: this
observation more particularly applies to the hill-ant (_F. rufa_),
all the upper stories of whose dwellings are generally laid flat
by the winter rains and snow; but every species, it may well be
supposed, has at this season some deranged apartments to restore to
order, or some demolished ones to rebuild.
After their annual labours are begun, few are ignorant how
incessantly ants are engaged in building or repairing their
habitations, in collecting provisions, and in the care of their
young brood; but scarcely any are aware of the extent to which their
activity is carried, and that their labours are going on even in the
night.--Yet this is a certain fact.--Long ago Aristotle affirmed
that ants worked in the night when the moon was at the full[95]; and
their historian Gould observes, "that they even exceed the painful
industrious bees. For the ants employ each moment, by day and night,
almost without intermission, unless hindered by excessive rains[96]."
M. Huber also, speaking of a mason-ant, not found with us, tells us
that they work after sun-set, and in the night[97]. To these I can
add some observations of my own, which fully confirm these accounts.
My first were made at nine o'clock at night, when I found the
inhabitants of a nest of the red ant (_Myrmica rubra_) very busily
employed; I repeated the observation, which I could conveniently do,
the nest being in my garden, at various times from that hour till
twelve, and always found some going and coming, even while a heavy
rain was falling. Having in the day noticed some Aphides upon a
thistle, I examined it again in the night, at about eleven o'clock,
and found my ants busy milking their cows, which did not for the
sake of repose intermit their suction. At the same hour, another
night, I observed the little negro ant (_F. fusca_) engaged in the
same employment upon an elder. About two miles from my residence
was a nest of Gould's hill-ant (_F. rufa_), which, according to M.
Huber, shut their gates, or rather barricade them, every night, and
remain at home[98]. Being desirous of ascertaining the accuracy of
his statement, early in October, about two o'clock one morning, I
visited this nest in company with an intelligent friend; and to our
surprise and admiration we found our ants at work, some being engaged
in carrying their usual burthen, sticks and straws, into their
habitation, others going out from it, and several were climbing the
neighbouring oaks, doubtless to milk their Aphides. The number of
comers and goers at that hour, however, was nothing compared with
the myriads that may always be seen on these nests during the day.
It so happened that our visit was paid while the moon was near the
full; so that whether this species is equally vigilant and active
in the absence of that luminary yet remains uncertain. Perhaps this
circumstance might reconcile Huber's observation with ours, and
confirm the accuracy of Aristotle's statement before quoted. To the
_red ant_, indeed, it is perfectly indifferent whether the moon shine
or not; they are always busy, though not in such numbers as during
the day. It is probable that these creatures take their repose at all
hours indifferently; for it cannot be supposed that they are employed
day and night without rest.
I have related to you in this and former letters most of the works
and employments of ants, but as yet I have given you no account of
their roads and track-ways.--Don't be alarmed, and imagine I am
going to repeat to you the fable of the ancients, that they wear a
path in the stones[99]; for I suppose you will scarcely be brought
to believe that, as Hannibal cut a way for the passage of his army
over the Alps by means of vinegar, so the ants may with equal effect
employ the formic acid: but more species than one do really form
roads which lead from their formicaries into the adjoining country.
Gould, speaking of his jet-ant (_F. fuliginosa_), says that they
make several main track-ways, (streets he calls them,) with smaller
paths striking off from them, extending sometimes to the distance of
forty feet from their nest, and leading to those spots in which they
collect their provisions; that upon these roads they always travel,
and are very careful to remove from them bits of sticks, straw, or
anything that may impede their progress; nay, that they even keep low
the herbs and grass which grow in them, by constantly biting them
off[100], so that they may be said to mow their walks. But the best
constructors of roads are the hill-ants (_F. rufa_). Of these De Geer
says, "When you keep yourself still, without making any noise, in
the woods peopled with these ants, you may hear them very distinctly
walking over the dry leaves which are dispersed upon the soil, the
claws of their feet producing a slight sound when they lay hold of
them. They make in the ground broad paths, well beaten, which may be
readily distinguished, and which are formed by the going and coming
of innumerable ants, whose custom it is always to travel in the same
route[101]." From Huber we further learn, that these roads of the
hill-ants are sometimes a hundred feet in length, and several inches
wide; and that they are not formed merely by the tread of these
creatures, but hollowed out by their labour[102]. Virgil alludes
to their tracks in the following animated lines, which, though not
altogether correct, are very beautiful:
"So when the pismires, an industrious train,
Embodied rob some golden heap of grain,
Studious ere stormy winter frowns to lay
Safe in their darksome cells the treasured prey;
_In one long track_ the dusky legions lead
Their prize in triumph through the verdant mead;
Here bending with the load, a panting throng
With force conjoin'd heave some huge grain along;
Some lash the stragglers to the task assign'd,
Some to their ranks the bands that lag behind:
They crowd _the peopled path_ in thick array,
Glow at the work, and darken all the way."
Bonnet, observing that ants always keep the same track both in going
from and returning to their nest, imagines that their paths are
imbued with the strong scent of the formic acid, which serves to
direct them; but, as Huber remarks, though this may be of some use
to them, their other senses must be equally employed, since it is
evident, when they have made any discovery of agreeable food, that
they possess the means of directing their companions to it, though
it is scarcely possible that the path can have been sufficiently
impregnated with the acid for them to trace their way to it by scent.
Indeed the recruiting system described above, proves that it requires
some pains to instruct ants in the way from an old to a new nest;
whereas, were they directed by scent, after a sufficient number had
passed to and fro to imbue the path with the acid, there would be no
occasion for further deportations[103].
Though ants have no mechanical inventions to diminish the quantum of
labour, yet by numbers, strength, and perseverance they effect what
at first sight seems quite beyond their powers. Their strength is
wonderful: I once, as I formerly observed, saw two or three of them
haling along a young snake not dead, which was of the thickness of
a goose-quill[104]. St. Pierre relates, that he was highly amused
with seeing a number of ants carrying off a Patagonian centipede.
They had seized it by all its legs, and bore it along as workmen
do a large piece of timber[105]. The Mahometans hold, as Thevenot
relates, that one of the animals in Paradise is Solomon's ant, which,
when all creatures in obedience to him brought him presents, dragged
before him a locust, and was therefore preferred before all others,
because it had brought a creature so much bigger than itself. They
sometimes, indeed, aim at things beyond their strength; but if they
make their attack, they pertinaciously persist in it though at the
expense of their lives. I have in my cabinet a specimen of _Colliuris
longicollis_, Latr., to one of the legs of which a small ant,
scarcely a thirtieth part of its bulk, is fixed by its jaws. It had
probably the audacity to attack this giant, compared with itself, and
obstinately refusing to let go its hold was starved to death[106].
Professor Afzelius once related to me some particulars with respect
to a species of ant in Sierra Leone, which proves the same point. He
says that they march in columns that exceed all powers of numeration,
and always pursue a straight course, from which nothing can cause
them to deviate: if they come to a house or other building, they
storm or undermine it; if a river comes across them, though millions
perish in the attempt, they endeavour to swim over it.
This quality of perseverance in ants on one occasion led to very
important results, which affected a large portion of this habitable
globe; for the celebrated conqueror Timour, being once forced to take
shelter from his enemies in a ruined building, where he sat alone many
hours, desirous of diverting his mind from his hopeless condition, he
fixed his observation upon an ant that was carrying a grain of corn
(probably a pupa) larger than itself up a high wall. Numbering the
efforts that it made to accomplish this object, he found that the grain
fell sixty-nine times to the ground, but the seventieth time it reached
the top of the wall. "This sight (said Timour) gave me courage at the
moment; and I have never forgotten the lesson it conveyed[107]."
Madame Merian, in her _Surinam Insects_, speaking of the large-headed
ant (_Œcodoma cephalotes_), affirms that, if they wish to emigrate,
they will construct a living bridge in this manner:--One individual
first fixes itself to a piece of wood by means of its jaws, and
remains stationary; with this a second connects itself; a third
takes hold of the second, and a fourth of the third, and so on, till
a long connected line is formed fastened at one extremity, which
floats exposed to the wind, till the other end is blown over so as to
fix itself to the opposite side of the stream, when the rest of the
colony pass over upon it, as a bridge[108]. This is the process, as
far as I can collect it from her imperfect account:--as she is not
always very correct in her statements, I regarded this as altogether
fabulous, till I met with the following history of a similar
proceeding in De Azara, which induces me to give more credit to it.
He tells us, that in low districts in South America, that are exposed
to inundations, conical hills of earth may be observed, about three
feet high, and very near to each other, which are inhabited by a
little black ant. When an inundation takes place, they are heaped
together out of the nest into a circular mass, about a foot in
diameter and four fingers in depth. Thus they remain floating upon
the water while the inundation continues. One of the sides of the
mass which they form is attached to some sprig of grass, or piece
of wood; and when the waters are retired, they return to their
habitation. When they wish to pass from one plant to another, they
may often be seen formed into a bridge, of two palms length, and of
the breadth of a finger, which has no other support than that of its
two extremities. One would suppose that their own weight would sink
them; but it is certain that the masses remain floating during the
inundation, which lasts some days[109].
You must now be fully satiated with this account of the constant
fatigue and labour to which our little pismires are doomed by the law
of their nature; I shall therefore endeavour to relieve your mind by
introducing you to a more quiet scene, and exhibit them to you during
their intervals of repose and relaxation.
Gould tells us that the hill-ant is very fond of basking in the sun,
and that on a fine serene morning you may see them conglomerated
like bees on the surface of their nest, from whence, on the least
disturbance, they will disappear in an instant[110]. M. Huber also
observes, after their labours are finished, that they stretch
themselves in the sun, where they lie heaped one upon another, and
seem to enjoy a short interval of repose: and in the interior of an
artificial nest, in which he had confined some of this species,
where he saw many employed in various ways, he noticed some reposing
which appeared to be asleep[111].
But they have not only their time for repose; they also devote
some to relaxation, during which they amuse themselves with sports
and games. "You may frequently perceive one of these ants (_F.
rufa_) (says our Gould) run to and fro with a fellow-labourer in
his forceps, of the same species and colony. It appeared first in
the light of provisions; but I was soon undeceived by observing,
that after being carried for some time, it was let go in a friendly
manner, and received no personal injury. This amusement, or whatever
title you please to give it, is often repeated, particularly amongst
the hill-ants, who are very fond of this sportive exercise[112]."
A nest of ants which Bonnet found in the head of a teazle, when
enjoying the full sun, which seems the acme of formic felicity,
amused themselves with carrying each other on their backs, the rider
holding with his mandibles the neck of his horse, and embracing it
closely with his legs[113]. But the most circumstantial account of
their sports is given by Huber. "I approached one day," says he, "one
of their formicaries (he is speaking of _F. rufa_) exposed to the sun
and sheltered from the north. The ants were heaped together in great
numbers, and seemed to enjoy the temperature which they experienced
at the surface of the nest. None of them were working: this multitude
of accumulated insects exhibited the appearance of a boiling
fluid, upon which at first the eye could scarce fix itself without
difficulty. But when I set myself to follow each ant separately, I
saw them approach each other, moving their antennæ with astonishing
rapidity; with their fore-feet they patted lightly the cheeks of
other ants: after these first gestures, which resembled caresses,
they reared upon their hind-legs by pairs, they wrestled together,
they seized one another by a mandible, by a leg or an antenna, they
then let go their hold to renew the attack; they fixed themselves to
each other's trunk or abdomen, they embraced, they turned each other
over, or lifted each other up by turns--they soon quitted the ants
they had seized, and endeavoured to catch others: I have seen some
who engaged in these exercises with such eagerness, as to pursue
successively several workers; and the combat did not terminate till
the least animated, having thrown his antagonist, accomplished his
escape by concealing himself in some gallery[114]." He compares these
sports to the gambols of two puppies, and tells us that he not only
often observed them in this nest, but also in his artificial one.
I shall here copy for you a memorandum I formerly made. "On the ninth
of May, at half-past two, as I was walking on the Plumstead road near
Norwich, on a sunny bank I observed a large number of ants (_Formica
fusca_) agglomerated in crowds near the entrances of their nest.
They seemed to make no long excursions, as if intent upon enjoying
the sun-shine at home; but all the while they were coursing about,
and appeared to accost each other with their antennæ. Examining them
very attentively, I at length saw one dragging another, which it
absolutely lifted up by its antennæ, and carrying it in the air. I
followed it with my eye, till it concealed itself and its antagonist
in the nest. I soon noticed another that had recourse to the same
manœuvres; but in this instance the ant that was attacked resisted
manfully, a third sometimes appearing inclined to interfere: the
result was, that this also was dragged in. A third was haled in
by its legs, and a fourth by its mandibles. What was the precise
object of these proceedings, whether sport or violence, I could not
ascertain. I walked the same way on the following morning, but at an
earlier hour, when only a few comers and goers were to be seen near
the nest:" And soon leaving the place, I had no further opportunity
to attend to them.
And now having conducted you through every apartment of the
formicary, and shown you its inhabitants in every light, I shall
leave you to meditate on the extraordinary instincts with which their
Creator has gifted them, reserving what I have to say on the other
social insects for a future occasion.
I am, &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] It is not here meant to be asserted that insects are actuated by
these passions in the same way that man is, but only that in their
various instincts they exhibit the semblance of them, and as it were
_symbolize_ them.
[36] Plusieurs d'entre eux (_Insectes_) savent user de ressources
ingénieuses dans les circonstances difficiles: ils sortent alors de
leur routine accoutumée et semblent agir d'après la position dans
laquelle ils se trouvent; c'est là sans doute l'un des phénomènes les
plus curieux de l'histoire naturelle. Huber, _Nouvelles Observations
sur les Abeilles_, ii. 198.--Compare also ibid. 250, note N. B.
[37] I employ occasionally the term _neuters_, though it is not
perfectly proper, for the sake of convenience;--strictly speaking,
they may rather be regarded as imperfect or sterile females. Yet
certainly, as the imperfection of their organization unfits them for
sexual purposes, the term _neuter_ is not absolutely improper.
[38] _Œuv._ ix. 163.
[39] M. P. Huber in _Linn. Trans._ vi. 256. Reaum. v.
[40] VOL. I. 244.
[41] The neuters in all respects bear a stronger analogy to the larvæ
than to the perfect insects; and, after all, may possibly turn out
to be larvæ, perhaps of the males. Huber seems to doubt their being
neuters. _Nouv. Obs._ ii. 444, note *.
[42] In this these animals vary from the usual instinct of the social
_Hymenoptera_, the ants, the wasps, and the humble-bees--with whom
the females lay the first foundations of the colonies, unassisted
by any neuters;--but in the swarms of the hive-bee an election may
perhaps in some instances be said to take place.
[43] VOL. I. Ed. 508.
[44] See VOL. I. 509.
[45] Gould's _Account of English Ants_, 22.
[46] The late John Hunter dissected two young queens. In the abdomen
he found two ovaries, consisting of many hundred oviducts, each
containing innumerable eggs.
[47] The anonymous author before alluded to, who observed the Ceylon
white ants, says, that such was the size of the masses, which were
tempered with a strong gluten, that they adhered though laid on the
upper part of the breach.
[48] Latr. _Hist. Nat._ xiii. 64.
[49] _N. Dict. D'Hist. Nat._ xxii. 57, 58.
[50] Bochart, _Hierozoic._ ii. 1. iv. c. 22.
[51] M. P. Huber, in the account which, in imitation of De Geer,
he has given of the discoveries made by his predecessors in the
history of ants, having passed without notice, probably ignorant of
the existence of such a writer, those of our intelligent countryman
Gould, I shall here give a short analysis of them; from which it will
appear, that he was one of their best, or rather their very best
historian, till M. Huber's work came out. His _Account of English
Ants_ was published in 1747, long before either Linné or De Geer had
written upon the subject.
I. _Species._ He describes five species of English ants; viz. 1.
The hill ant (_Formica rufa_, L.). 2. The jet ant (_F. fuliginosa_,
Latr.). 3. The red ant (_Myrmica rubra_, Latr. _Formica_, Lin.): He
observes, that this species alone is armed with a sting; whereas, the
others make a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid
into it. 4. The common yellow ant (_F. flava_, Latr.): and 5. The
small black ant (_F. fusca_, L.).
II. _Egg._ He observes that the eggs producing males and females are
laid the earliest, and are the largest:--he seems, however, to have
confounded the black and brown eggs of _Aphides_ with those of ants.
III. _Larva._ These, when first hatched, he observes, are hairy, and
continue in the larva state twelve months or more. He, as well as De
Geer, was aware that the larvæ of _Myrmica rubra_ do not, as other
ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa.
IV. _Pupa._ He found that female ants continue in this state about
six weeks, and males and neuters only a month.
V. _Imago._ He knew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that females
cast their wings previous to their becoming mothers; that, at the
time of their swarms, large numbers of both sexes become the prey of
birds and fishes: that the surviving females, sometimes in numbers,
go under ground, particularly in mole-hills, and lay eggs; but he had
not discovered that they then act the part of neuters in the care of
their progeny. He knew also, that when there was more than one queen
in a nest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony.
With respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they pay their
queens or fertile females, continued even after their death;--this
homage, he however observes, which is noticed by no other author,
appears often to be temporary and local--ceasing at certain times,
and being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges upon their
exemplary care of the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ. He tells us that the eggs,
as soon as laid, are taken by the neuters and deposited in heaps, and
that the neuters brood them. He particularly notices their carrying
them, with the larvæ and pupæ, daily from the interior to the surface
of the nest and back again, according to the temperature; and that
they feed the larvæ by disgorging the food from their own stomach.
He speaks also of their opening the cocoons when the pupæ are ready
to assume the imago, and disengaging them from them. With regard
to their labours, he found that they work all night, except during
violent rains:--that their instinct varies as to the station of their
nest:--that their masonry is consolidated by no cement, but consists
merely of mould;--that they form roads and trackways to and from
their nests;--that they carry each other in sport, and sometimes lie
heaped one on another in the sun.--He suspects that they occasionally
emigrate;--he proves by a variety of experiments that they do not hoard
up provisions. He found they were often infested by a particular kind
of _Gordius_:--he had noticed also that the neuters of _F. rufa_ and
_flava_ (which escaped M. Huber, though he observed it in _Polyergus
rufescens_, Latr.) are of two sizes, which the writer of this note can
confirm by producing specimens:--and lastly, with Swammerdam, he had
recourse to artificial colonies, the better to enable him to examine
their proceedings, but not comparable to the ingenious apparatus of M.
Huber.
[52] Gould says that the males and females are nearly equal in
number, p. 62; but from Huber's observations it seems to follow that
the former are most numerous, p. 96.
[53] That the neuter ants, like those of the hive-bee, are imperfectly
organized females, appears from the following observation of M. Huber
(_Nouv. Observ. &c._ ii. 443.)--"Les fourmis nous ont encore offert
à cet égard une analogie très frappante; à la vérité, nous n'avons
jamais vu pondre les ouvrières, mais nous avons été témoins de leur
accouplement. Ce fait pourroit être attesté par plusieurs membres de la
Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Génève, à qui nous l'avons fait voir;
l'approche du mâle étoit toujours suivie de la mort de l'ouvrière;
leur conformation ne permet donc pas qu'elles deviennent mères, mais
l'instinct du mâle prouve du moins que ce sont des femelles."
[54] Gould, 103.
[55] M. Huber calls this an apterous female; yet he could not
discover that they laid eggs; and he owns that they more nearly
resembled the workers than the females; and that he should have
considered them as such, had he seen them mix with them in their
excursions. _Huber_, p. 251.
[56] De Geer ii. 1104.
[57] Gould, 99.
[58] Huber, 105.
[59] _Pilgrimage_, 1090.
[60] M. Huber observes that fecundated females, after they have lost
their wings, make themselves a subterranean cell, some singly, others
_in common_. From which it appears that some colonies have more than
one female, from their first establishment.
[61] ii. 1071.
[62] Gould, p. 24--.
[63] Compare Gould p. 25, with Huber 125, note (1).
[64] It may be thought that many of the anecdotes related in the
following history of the proceedings of neuter ants could not have
been observed by any one, unless he had been admitted into an
ant-hill; but it must be recollected that M. P. Huber, from whose
work the most extraordinary facts are copied, invented a kind of ant
hive; so constructed as to enable him to observe their proceedings
without disturbing them.
[65] Vol. I. 476.
[66] Gould, 92. De Geer ii. 1067. Huber, 5, 132.
[67] Huber, 133.
[68] Huber, 237, 217, 167.
[69] Ibid. 137.
[70] Bradley, 134.
[71] Gould, 85.
[72] _Hist. of Barbadoes_, p. 63.
[73] VOL. I. p. 122.
[74] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. p. 338, 342. Some,
however, still regard it as a distinct acid.
[75] p. 34.
[76] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. 343.
[77] Gould, 101.
[78] One would think the writer of the account of ants in Mouffet
had been witness to something similar. "If they see any one idle,"
says he, "they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from
the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut
off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their
children not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and
effeminacy."--_Theatr. Ins._ 241.
[79] Mouffet, _Theatr. Ins._ 242.
[80] Huber, 160.
[81] See Huber, chap. v.
[82] Huber, 287. Jurine, _Hyménoptères_, 273.
[83] It is not clear that our Willughby had not some knowledge of
this extraordinary fact; for in his description of ants, speaking
of their care of their pupæ, he says, "_that they also carry the
aureliæ of others into their nests, as if they were their own_."
Rai. _Hist. Ins._ 69.--Gould remarks concerning the hill-ant, "This
species is very rapacious after the _vermicles_ and _nymphs_ of other
ants. If you place a parcel before or near their colonies, they will,
with remarkable greediness, seize and carry them off." 91, note *.
Query--Do they this to devour them, or educate them? White made the
same observation, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 278.
[84] This species forms a kind of link which connects Latreille's two
genera _Formica_ and _Myrmica_, borrowing the abdominal squama from
the former, and the sting from the latter.
[85] Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have
met with fresh confirmation of the extraordinary history here related.
Having been induced to visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so
justly celebrated as one of the first entomologists of the age, and to
whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly attentions which he
paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he assured
me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. He
has also said the same in his _Considérations nouvelles et générales
sur les insectes vivant en Société_. (Mém. du Mus. iii. 407.) At the
same time he informed me that there was a nest of the rufescent ants
in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards was so good
as to accompany me. We went on the 25th of June, 1817. The day was
excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we
began our search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion.
In a minute or two, however, my friend directed my attention to one
individual--two or three more next appeared--and soon a numerous army
was to be seen winding through the long grass of a low ridge in which
was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the wood from Paris, on
the right-hand and near the road, is a bare place paled in for the
Sunday amusement of the lower orders--to this the ants directed their
march, and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed
it rapidly and with great apparent eagerness; all the while exploring
the ground with their antennæ as beagles with their noses, evidently
as if in pursuit of game. Those in the van, as Huber also observed,
kept perpetually falling back into the main body. When they had passed
this inclosure, they appeared for some time to be at a loss, making no
progress but only coursing about: but after a few minutes delay, as if
they had received some intelligence, they resumed their march and soon
arrived at a negro nest, which they entered by one or two apertures. We
could not observe that any negroes were expecting their attack outside
the nest, but in a short time a few came out at another opening, and
seemed to be making their escape. Perhaps some conflict might have
taken place within the nest, in the interval between the appearance of
these negroes and the entry of their assailants. However this might be,
in a few minutes one of the latter made its appearance with a pupa in
its mouth; it was followed by three or four more; and soon the whole
army began to emerge as fast as it could, almost every individual
carrying its burthen. Most that I observed seemed to have pupæ. I
then traced the expedition back to the spot from which I first saw
them set out, which according to my steps was about 156 feet from the
negro formicary. The whole business was transacted in little more than
an hour. Though I could trace the ants back to a certain spot in the
ridge before mentioned, where they first appeared in the long grass, I
did not succeed in finding the entrance to their nest, so that I was
deprived of the pleasure of seeing the mixed society. As we dined at an
_auberge_ close to the spot, I proposed renewing my researches after
dinner; but a violent tempest of thunder and rain, though I attempted
it, prevented my succeeding; and afterwards I had no opportunity of
revisiting the place.
M. Latreille very justly observes that it is physically impossible
for the _rufescent_ ants (_Polyergus rufescens_), on account of the
form of their jaws and the accessory parts of the mouth, either to
prepare habitations for their family, to procure food, or to feed
them.--_Considérations nouvelles, &c._ p. 408.
[86] VOL. I. 370.
[87] See Huber, chap, vii-xi.
[88] The ant ascends the tree, says Linné, _that it may milk its
cows, the Aphides_, not kill them. _Syst. Nat._ 962. 3.
[89] Huber, 195. I have more than once found these Aphides in the
nests of this species of ant.
[90] See Huber, chap. vi. I have found Aphides in the nest of _Myrmica
rubra_. Boisier de Sauvages speaks of ants keeping their own Aphides,
and gives an interesting account of them. _Journ. de Physique_, i. 195.
[91] Gould, 42.
[92] Walking one day early in July in a spot where I used to notice a
single nest of _Formica rufa_, I observed that a new colony had been
formed of considerable magnitude; and between it and the original
nest were six or seven smaller settlements.
[93] See Huber, chap. iv. § 3.
[94] Gould, 67. De Geer, ii. 1054.
[95] _Hist. Animal._ l. ix. c. 38.
[96] Gould, 68.
[97] Huber, 35, 42.
[98] Ibid. 23.
[99] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ lxi. c. 29.
[100] Gould, 87.
[101] De Geer, ii. 1067.
[102] Huber, 146.
[103] _Œuv. de_ Bonnet, i. 535. Huber, 197.
[104] VOL. I. 258.
[105] _Voy. to Maurit._ 71.
[106] I was much amused, when dining in the forest of Fontainebleau,
by the pertinacity with which the hill-ant (_F. rufa_) attacked our
food, haling from our very plates, while we were eating, long strips
of meat many times their own size.
[107] Related in the _Quarterly Review_ for August 1816, p. 259.
[108] _Insect. Surinam._ p. 18. In her plate the ants are represented
so connected.
[109] _Voyages dans l'Amérique Mérid._ i. 187.
[110] Gould, 69.
[111] Huber, 73.
[112] Gould, 103--.
[113] Bonnet, ii. 407.
[114] Huber, 170--.
LETTER XVIII.
_SOCIETIES OF INSECTS._
PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (_Wasps and Humble-Bees._)
I shall now call your attention to such parts of the history of
two other descriptions of social insects, _wasps_, namely, and
_humble-bees_, as have not been related to you in my letters on the
affection of insects for their young, and on their habitations. What
I have to communicate, though not devoid of interest, is not to be
compared with the preceding account of the ants, nor with that which
will follow of the hive-bee. This, however, may arise more from the
deficiency of observations than the barrenness of the subject.
The first of these animals, _wasps_, (_Vespa_)--with whose proceedings
I shall begin,--we are apt to regard in a very unfavourable light.
They are the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be
open at the season of the year in which they appear, they are sure
to enter. When they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make
free with every thing that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine,
are equally to their taste; and if we attempt to drive them away, and
are not very cautious, they will often make us sensible that they are
not to be provoked with impunity. Compared with the bees, they may
be considered as a horde of thieves and brigands; and the latter as
peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects, whose persons are attacked
and property plundered by them. Yet, with all this love of pillage
and other bad propensities, they are not altogether disagreeable or
unamiable; they are brisk and lively; they do not usually attack
unprovoked; and their object in plundering us is not purely selfish,
but is principally to provide for the support of the young brood of
their colonies.
The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other social
_Hymenoptera_, consist of females, males, and workers. The _females_
may be considered as of two sorts: first, the females by way of
eminence, much larger than any other individuals of the community,
equalling six of the workers (from which in other respects they do
not materially differ) in weight, and laying both male and female
eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the workers, and
laying only male eggs. This last description of females, which are
found also both amongst the humble-bees and hive-bees, were first
observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber's[115].
The large females are produced later than the workers, and make
their appearance in the following spring; and whoever destroys one
of them at that time, destroys an intire colony, of which she would
be the founder. They are more worthy of praise than the queen-bee;
since upon the latter, from her very first appearance in the perfect
state no labour devolves,--all her wants being prevented by a host of
workers, some of which are constantly attending upon her, feeding
her, and permitting her to suffer no fatigue; while others take
every step that is necessary for the safety and subsistence of the
colony. Not so our female wasp;--she is at first an insulated being
that has had the fortune to survive the rigours of winter. When in
the spring she lays the foundation of her future empire, she has not
a single worker at her disposal: with her own hands and teeth she
often hollows out a cave wherein she may lay the first foundations
of her paper metropolis; she must herself build the first houses,
and produce from her own womb their first inhabitants; which in
their infant state she must feed and educate, before they can assist
her in her great design. At length she receives the reward of her
perseverance and labour; and from being a solitary unconnected
individual, in the autumn is enabled to rival the queen of the hive
in the number of her children and subjects; and in the edifices which
they inhabit--the number of cells in a vespiary sometimes amounting
to more than 16,000, almost all of which contain either an egg, a
grub, or a pupa; and each cell serving for three generations in a
year; which, after making every allowance for failures and other
casualties, will give a population of at least 30,000. Even at this
time, when she has so numerous an army of coadjutors, the industry of
this creature does not cease, but she continues to set an example of
diligence to the rest of the community.--If by any accident, before
the other females are hatched, the queen mother perishes, the neuters
cease their labours, lose their instincts, and die.
The number of females in a populous vespiary is considerable, amounting
to several hundred; they emerge from the pupa about the latter end of
August, at the same time with the males, and fly in September and
October, when they pair. Of this large number of females, very few
survive the winter. Those that are so fortunate remain torpid till
the vernal sun recalls them to life and action. They then fly forth,
collect provision for their young brood, and are engaged in the other
labours necessary for laying the foundation of their empire: but in the
summer months they are never seen out of the nest.
The _male_ wasps are much smaller than the female, but they weigh as
much as two workers. Their antennæ are longer than those of either,
not, like theirs, thicker at the end, but perfectly filiform; and
their abdomen is distinguished by an additional segment. Their
numbers about equal those of the females, and they are produced at
the same time. They are not so wholly given to pleasure and idleness
as the drones of the hive. They do not, indeed, assist in building
the nest, and in the care of the young brood; but they are the
scavengers of the community; for they sweep the passages and streets,
and carry off all the filth. They also remove the bodies of the
dead, which are sometimes heavy burthens for them; in which case two
unite their strength to accomplish the work; or, if a partner be not
at hand, the wasp thus employed cuts off the head of the defunct,
and so effects its purpose. As they make themselves so useful, they
are not, like the male bees, devoted by the workers to an universal
massacre when the impregnation of the females, the great end of
their creation, is answered; but they share the general lot of the
community, and are suffered to survive till the cold cuts off them
and the workers together.
The _workers_ are the most numerous, and to us the only troublesome
part of the community; upon whom devolves the main business of the
nest. In the summer and autumnal months, they go forth by myriads into
the neighbouring country to collect provisions; and on their return to
the common den, after reserving a sufficiency for the nutriment of the
young brood, they divide the spoil with great impartiality;--part being
given to the females, part to the males, and part to those workers
that have been engaged in extending and fortifying the vespiary.
This division is voluntarily made, without the slightest symptom of
compulsion. Several wasps assemble round each of the returning workers,
and receive their respective portions. It is curious and interesting to
observe their motions upon this occasion. As soon as a wasp, that has
been filling itself with the juice of fruits, arrives at the nest, it
perches upon the top, and disgorging a drop of its saccharine fluid, is
attended sometimes by two at once, who share the treasure: this being
thus distributed, a second and sometimes a third drop is produced,
which falls to the lot of others.
Another principal employment of the workers is the enlarging and
repairing of the nest. It is extremely amusing to see them engaged
upon this foliaceous covering. They work with great celerity; and
though a large number are occupied at the same time, there is not the
least confusion. Each individual has its portion of work assigned to
it, extending from an inch to an inch and a half, and is furnished
with a ball of ligneous fibre, scraped or rather plucked by its
powerful jaws from posts, rails, and the like. This is carried in its
mouth, and is thus ready for immediate use:--but upon this subject
I have enlarged in a former letter[116]. The workers also clean the
cells and prepare them to receive another egg, after the imago is
disclosed and has left it.
There is good reason for thinking, and the opinion has the
sanction of Sir Joseph Banks, that wasps have sentinels placed
at the entrances of their nests, which if you can once seize and
destroy, the remainder will not attack you. This is confirmed by an
observation of Mr. Knight's in the _Philosophical Transactions_[117],
that if a nest of wasps be approached without alarming the
inhabitants, and all communication be suddenly cut off between those
out of the nest and those within it, no provocation will induce the
former to defend it and themselves. But if one escapes from within,
it comes with a very different temper, and appears commissioned to
avenge public wrongs, and prepared to sacrifice its life in the
execution of its orders. He discovered this when quite a boy.
It sometimes happens, that when a large number of female wasps have
been observed in the spring, and an abundance of workers has in
consequence been expected to make their attack upon us in the summer
and autumn, but few have appeared. Mr. Knight observed this in 1806,
and supposes it to be caused by a failure of males[118]. I have since
more than once made the same observation, and Major Moor, as well
as myself, noticed in the year 1815. What took place here in the
following year may in some degree account for it. Though the summer
had been very wet, and one may almost say winterly, there were in
the neighbourhood in which I reside abundance of wasps at the usual
time; but, except on some few warm days, in which they were very
active, benumbed by the cold they were crawling about upon the floors
of my house and seemed unable to fly. In this vicinity numbers make
their nests in the banks of the river. In the beginning of the month
of October there was a very considerable inundation, after which not
a single wasp was to be seen. The continued wet that produces an
inundation may also destroy those nests that are out of the reach
of the waters;--and perhaps this cause may have operated in those
years above alluded to, in which the appearance of the workers in
the summer and autumn did not correspond with the large numbers of
females observed in the spring.
In ordinary seasons, in the month lately mentioned, October, wasps
seem to become less savage and sanguinary; for even flies, of which
earlier in the summer they are the pitiless destroyers, may be seen
to enter their nests with impunity. It is then, probably, that they
begin to be first affected by the approach of the cold season, when
nature teaches them it is useless longer to attend to their young.
They themselves all perish, except a few of the females, upon the
first attack of frost.
Reaumur, from whom (see the sixth Memoir of his last volume) most
of these observations are taken, put the nests of wasps under glass
hives, and succeeded so effectually in reconciling these little
restless creatures to them, that they carried on their various works
under his eye: and if you feel disposed to follow his example, I
have no doubt you will throw light upon many parts of their history,
concerning which we are now in darkness.
* * * * *
Having given you some idea, imperfect indeed from the want of
materials, of the societies of wasps, I must next draw up for you the
best account I can of those of the _humble-bees_[119]. These form
a kind of intermediate link between the wasps and the hive-bees,
collecting honey indeed and making wax, but constructing their
combs and cells without the geometric precision of the latter, and
of a more rude and rustic kind of architecture; and distinguished
from both, though they approach nearer to the bees, by the extreme
hairiness of their bodies.
The population of a humble-bees nest may be divided into four orders
of individuals: the large females; the small females; the males; and
the workers.
The large _females_, like the female wasps, are the original founders
of their republics. They are often so large, that by the side of the
small ones or the workers, which in every other respect they exactly
resemble, they look like giants opposed to pygmies. They are excluded
from the pupa in the autumn; and pair in that season, with males
produced from the eggs of the small females. They pass the winter
under ground, and, as appears from an observation of M. P. Huber, in
a particular apartment, separate from the nest, and rendered warm
by a carpeting of moss and grass, but without any supply of food.
Early in the spring, (for they make their first appearance as soon
as the catkins of the sallows and willows are in flower,) like the
female wasps, they lay the foundations of a new colony without the
assistance of any neuters, which all perish before the winter. In
some instances however, if a conjecture of M. de la Billardière
be correct, these creatures have an assistant assigned to them.
He says, at this season (the approach of winter) he found in the
nest of _Bombus Sylvarum_ some old females and workers, whose wings
were fastened together to retain them in the nest by hindering them
from flying; these wings in each individual were fastened together
at the extremity, by means of some very brown wax applied above
and below[120]. This he conceives to be a precaution taken by the
other bees to oblige these individuals to remain in the nest and
take care of the brood that was next year to renew the population
of the colony. I feel, however, great hesitation in admitting this
conjecture, founded upon an insulated and perhaps an accidental fact.
For, in the first place, the young females that come forth in the
autumn, and not the old ones, are the founders of new colonies; and
their instinct directs them to fulfill the great laws of their nature
without such compulsion; and in the next, the workers are never known
to survive the cold of winter.
The employment of a large female, besides the care of the young
brood before described, and the collecting of honey and pollen, is
principally the construction of the cells in which her eggs are to be
laid; which M. P. Huber seems to think, though they often assist in
it, the workers are not able to complete by themselves. So rapid is
the female in this work, that to make a cell, fill it with pollen,
commit one or two eggs to it, and cover them in, requires only the
short space of half an hour. Her family at first consists only of
workers, which are necessary to assist her in her labours; these
appear in May and June: but the males and females are later, and
sometimes are not produced before August and September[121]. As in
the case of the hive-bee, the food of these several individuals
differs; for the grubs that will turn to workers are fed with honey
and pollen mixed, while those that are destined to be males and
females are supplied with pure honey.
The instinct of these larger females does not develop itself all at
once: for it is a remarkable fact, that when they are first hatched
in the autumn, not being in a condition to become mothers, they are
no object of jealousy to the small quee
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