[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.]

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.

[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.

[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 queens, (as we shall soon see they are when engaged in oviposition,) and are employed in the ordinary labours of the parent nest—that is, they collect honey and pollen, and make wax; but they do not construct cells. The building instinct seems as it were in suspense, and does not manifest itself till the spring; when the maternal sentiment impels them at the same time to lay eggs and to construct the cells in which they are to be deposited.

I have told you above, that amongst the wasps a small kind of female has been discovered: this is the case also amongst the humble-bees, in whose societies they are more readily detected: not indeed by any observable difference between them and the workers, but chiefly by the diversity of their instincts:—from the other females they are distinguished solely by their diminutive size. Like those of the wasps and hive-bees, these minor queens produce only male eggs, which come out in time to fertilize the young females that found the vernal colonies. M. P. Huber suspects that, as in the case of the female bee, it is a different kind of food that develops their ovaries, and so distinguishes them from the workers. They are generally attended by a small number of males, who form their court.

M. Huber, watching at midnight the proceedings of a nest which he kept under a glass, observed the inhabitants to be in a state of great agitation: many of these bees were engaged in making a cell; the queen-mother of the colony, as she may be called, who is always extremely jealous of her pygmy rivals, came and drove them away from the cell;—she in her turn was driven away by the others, which pursued her, beating their wings with the utmost fury, to the bottom of the nest. The cell was then constructed, and two of them at the same time oviposited in it. The queen returned to the charge, exhibiting similar signs of anger; and, chasing them away again, put her head into the cell, when seizing the eggs that had been laid, she was observed to eat them with great avidity. The same scene was again renewed, with the same issue. After this, one of the small females returned and covered the empty cells with wax. When the mother-queen was removed, several of the small females contended for the cell with indescribable rage, all endeavouring to lay their eggs in it at the same time. These small females perish in the autumn.

The males are usually smaller than the large females, and larger than the small ones and workers. They may be known by their longer, more filiform, and slenderer antennæ; by the different shape and by the beard of their mandibles. Their posterior tibiæ also want the corbicula and pecten that distinguish the individuals of the other sex, and their posterior plantæ have no auricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble-bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the rest to repair any damage or derangement that may befall the common habitation.

The workers, which are the first fruits of the queen-mother's vernal parturition, assist her, as soon as they are excluded from the pupa, in her various labours. To them also is committed the construction of the waxen vault that covers and defends the nest. When any individual larva has spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa, the workers remove all the wax from it; and as soon as it has attained to its perfect state, which takes place in about five days, the cocoons are used to hold honey or pollen. When the bees discharge the honey into them upon their return from their excursions, they open their mouths and contract their bodies, which occasions the honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of these honey-pots are occasionally found in a single nest, and more than forty are sometimes filled in a day. In collecting honey, humble-bees, if they cannot get at that contained in any flower by its natural opening, will often make an aperture at the base of the corolla, or even in the calyx, that they may insert their proboscis in the very place where nature has stored up her nectar[122]. M. Huber relates a singular anecdote of some hive-bees paying a visit to a nest of humble-bees placed under a box not far from their hive, in order to steal or beg their honey; which places in a strong light the good temper of the latter. This happened in a time of scarcity. The hive-bees, after pillaging, had taken almost entire possession of the nest. Some humble-bees which remained in spite of this disaster, went out to collect provisions; and bringing home the surplus after they had supplied their own immediate wants, the hive-bees followed them, and did not quit them till they had obtained the fruit of their labours. They licked them, presented to them their proboscis, surrounded them, and thus at last persuaded them to part with the contents of their honey-bags. The humble-bees after this flew away to collect a fresh supply. The hive-bees did them no harm, and never once showed their stings;—so that it seems to have been persuasion rather than force that produced this singular instance of self-denial. This remarkable manœuvre was practised for more than three weeks; when the wasps being attracted by the same cause, the humble-bees entirely forsook the nest[123].

The workers are the most numerous part of the community, but are nothing when compared with the numbers to be found in a vespiary or a beehive:—two or three hundred is a large population for a humble-bees nest; in some species it not being more than fifty or sixty.—They may more easily be studied than either wasps or hive-bees, as they seem not to be disturbed or interrupted in their works by the eye of an observer[124].

I am, &c.

[LETTER XIX.]

SOCIETIES OF INSECTS.

PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (The Hive-bee[125].)

The glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you will acknowledge, is wonderfully manifested by the varied proceedings of those social tribes of which I have lately treated: but it shines forth with a brightness still more intense in the instincts that actuate the common hive-bee (Apis mellifica), and which I am next to lay before you. Indeed, of all the insect associations, there are none that have more excited the attention and admiration of mankind in every age, or been more universally interesting, than the colonies of these little useful creatures. Both Greek and Roman writers are loud in their praise; nay, some philosophers were so enamoured of them, that, as I observed before[126], they devoted a large portion of their time to the study of their history. Whether the knowledge they acquired was at all equivalent to the years that were spent in the attainment of it, may be doubted: for, were it so, it is probable that Aristotle and Pliny would have given a clearer and more consistent account of the inhabitants of the hive than they have done. Indeed had their discoveries borne any proportion to the long tract of time asserted to have been employed by some in the study of these insects, they ought to have rivalled, and even exceeded, those of the Reaumurs and Hubers of our own age.

Numerous, and wonderful for their absurdity, were the errors and fables which many of the ancients adopted and circulated with respect to the generation and propagation of these busy insects. For instance,—that they were sometimes produced from the putrid bodies of oxen and lions; the kings and leaders from the brain, and the vulgar herd from the flesh—a fable derived probably from swarms of bees having been observed, as in the case of Samson[127], to take possession of the dried carcases of these animals, or perhaps from the myriads of flies (for the vulgar do not readily distinguish flies from bees) often generated in their putrescent flesh. They adopted another notion equally absurd; that these insects collect their young progeny from the blossoms and foliage of certain plants. Amongst others, the Cerinthus, the reed, and the olive-tree, had this virtue of generating infant bees attributed to them[128]. These specimens of ancient credulity will suffice.

But do not think that all the ancients imbibed such monstrous opinions. Aristotle's sentiments seem to have been much more correct, and not very wide of what some of our best modern apiarists have advanced. According to him, the kings (so he denominates the queen-bee) generate both kings and workers; and the latter the drones. This he seems to have learned from keepers of bees. The kings, says he in another place, are the parents of the bees, and the drones their children. It is right, he observes again, that the kings (which by some were called mothers) should remain within the hive unfettered by any employment, because they are made for the multiplication of the species[129]. To the same purpose Riem of Lauten of the Palatinate Apiarian Society, and Wilhelmi of the Lusatian, affirm that the queen lays the eggs which produce the queens and workers; and the workers those that produce the drones or males[130]. Aristotle also tells us, that some in his time affirmed that the bees (the workers) were the females, and the drones the males: an opinion which he combats from an analogy pushed rather too far, that nature would never give offensive armour to females[131]. In another place he appears to think that the workers are hermaphrodites:—his words are remarkable, and seem to indicate that he was aware of the sexes of plants: "having in themselves," says he, "like plants, the male and the female[132]."

Fables and absurdities, however, are not confined to the ancients, nor even to those moderns who lived before Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Bonnet, Schirach, John Hunter, Huber, and their followers, by their observations and discoveries had thrown so much light upon this interesting subject. Even in our own times, a Neapolitan professor, Monticelli, asserts, on the authority of a certain father Tanoya, that in every hive there are three sorts of bees independent of each other; viz. male and female drones—male and female, I must not say queens—call them what you will: and male and female workers; and that each construct their own cells!!! Enough, however, upon this subject. I shall now endeavour to lay before you the best authenticated facts in the history of these animals; but you must not expect an account of them complete in all its parts; for, much as we know, Bonnet's observation will still hold good: "The more I am engaged in making fresh observations upon bees, the more steadfast is my conviction, that the time is not yet arrived in which we can draw satisfactory conclusions with respect to their policy. It is only by varying and combining experiments in a thousand ways, and by placing these industrious flies in circumstances more or less removed from their ordinary state, that we can hope to ascertain the right direction of their instinct, and the true principles of their government[133]."

What I have further to say concerning these admirable creatures, will be principally taken from the two authors who have given the clearest and most satisfactory account of them, Reaumur and the elder Huber; though I shall add from other sources such additional observations as may serve better to elucidate their history.

The society of a hive of bees, besides the young brood, consists of one female or queen; several hundreds of males or drones; and many thousand workers.

The female, or queen, first demands our attention. Two sorts of females have been observed amongst the bees, a large one and a small. Mr. Needham was the first that observed the latter; and their existence, M. P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations of his father. They are bred in cells as large as those of the common queens, from which they differ only in size. Though they have ovaries, they have never been observed to lay eggs[134]. Having never seen one of these, for they are of very rare occurrence, my description must be confined to the common female, the genuine monarch of the hive[135].

There are two descriptions of males—one not bigger than the workers, supposed to be produced from a male egg laid in a worker's cell. The common males are much larger, and will counterpoise two workers.

I have before observed to you that there are two sorts of workers, the wax-makers and nurses[138]. They may also be further divided into fertile and sterile[139]: for some of them, which in their infancy are supposed to have partaken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay male eggs. There is found in some hives, according to Huber, a kind of bees, which from having less down upon the head and thorax appear blacker than the others, by whom they are always expelled from the hive, and often killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were discovered in these bees, though not furnished with eggs. This discovery induced M^lle Jurine, the lady who dissected them, to examine the common workers in the same way; and she found in all that she examined, what had escaped Swammerdam, perfect though sterile ovaries[140]. It is worth inquiry, though M. Huber gives no hint of this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, that if you closely observe a hive of bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn; but that in September not one of them is to be seen[141]. Huber does not say whether the wings of the bees in question were lacerated; but in superannuated insects the hair is often rubbed off the body, which gives them a darker hue than that of more recent individuals of the same species. Should this conjecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction of the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our little creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it seems the law of their nature to rid their community of all supernumerary and useless members, as is evident from their destruction of the drones after their work is done.

It is not often that insects have been weighed; but Reaumur's curiosity was excited to know the weight of bees; and he found that 336 weighed an ounce, and 5376 a pound. According to John Hunter, an ale-house pint contains 2160 workers.

I have described to you the persons of the different individuals that compose the society of the bee-hive more in detail than I should otherwise have done, in order that you may be the better able to form a judgement upon a most extraordinary circumstance in their history, which is supported by evidence that seems almost incontrovertible. The fact to which I allude is this—that if the bees are deprived of their queen, and are supplied with comb containing young worker brood only, they will select one or more to be educated as queens; which, by having a royal cell erected for their habitation, and being fed with royal jelly for not more than two days, when they emerge from the pupa state (though, if they had remained in the cells which they originally inhabited, they would have turned out workers) will come forth complete queens, with their form, instincts, and powers of generation entirely different. In order to produce this effect, the grub must not be more than three days old; and this is the age at which, according to Schirach, (the first apiarist who called the public attention to this miracle of nature,) the bees usually elect the larvæ to be royally educated; though it appears from Huber's observations, that a larva two days or even twenty-four hours old will do[142].—Having chosen a grub, they remove the inhabitants and their food from two of the cells which join that in which it resides; they next take down the partitions which separate these three cells; and, leaving the bottoms untouched, raise round the selected worm a cylindrical tube, which follows the horizontal direction of the other cells: but since at the close of the third day of its life its habitation must assume a different form and direction, they gnaw away the cells below it, and sacrifice without pity the grubs they contain, using the wax of which they were formed to construct a new pyramidal tube, which they join at right angles to the horizontal one, the diameter of the former diminishing insensibly from its base to its mouth. During the two days which the grub inhabits this cell, like the common royal cells now become vertical[143], a bee may always be observed with its head plunged into it; and when one quits it another takes its place. These bees keep lengthening the cell as the worm grows older, and duly supply it with food, which they place before its mouth, and round its body. The animal, which can only move in a spiral direction, keeps incessantly turning to take the jelly deposited before it; and thus slowly working downwards, arrives insensibly near the orifice of the cell, just at the time that it is ready to assume the pupa; when, as before described, the workers shut up its cradle with an appropriate covering[144].

When you have read this account, I fear, with the celebrated John Hunter, you will not be very ready to believe it, at least you will call upon me to bring forth my "strong reasons" in support of it. What!—you will exclaim—can a larger and warmer house (for the royal cells are affirmed to enjoy a higher temperature than those of the other bees[145]), a different and more pungent kind of food, and a vertical instead of a horizontal posture, in the first place, give a bee a differently shaped tongue and mandibles; render the surface of its posterior tibiæ flat instead of concave; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket for carrying the masses of pollen; of the auricle and pecten which enable the workers to use these tibiæ as pincers[146]; of the brush that lines the inside of their plantæ? Can they lengthen its abdomen; alter its colour and clothing; give a curve to its sting; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and of the vessels for secreting that substance; and render its ovaries more conspicuous, and capable of yielding female as well as male eggs? Can, in the next place, the seemingly trivial circumstances just enumerated altogether alter the instinct of these creatures? Can they give to one description of animals address and industry; and to the other astonishing fecundity? Can we conceive them to change the very passions, tempers, and manners? That the very same fœtus if fed with more pungent food, in a higher temperature and in a vertical position, shall become a female destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be incited to vengeance, and to pass her time without labour—that this very same fœtus, if fed with more simple food, in a lower temperature, in a more confined and horizontal habitation, shall come forth a worker zealous for the good of the community, a defender of the public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition—laborious, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful—incessantly engaged in the nurture of the young; in collecting honey and pollen; in elaborating wax; in constructing cells, and the like!—paying the most respectful and assiduous attention to objects which, had its ovaries been developed, it would have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till it had destroyed them! Further, that these factitious queens (I mean those that the bees elect from amongst worker brood, and educate to supply the place of a lost one in the manner just described) shall differ remarkably from the natural queens, (or those that have been wholly educated in a royal cell,) in being altogether mute[147]—. All this, you will think at first sight, so improbable, and next to impossible, that you will require the strongest and most irrefragable evidence before you will believe it.

In spite of all these powerful probabilities to the contrary, this astonishing and seemingly incredible fact rests upon strong foundations, and is established by experiments made at different times, by different persons of the highest credit, in different parts of Europe. The first who brought it before the public (as I lately observed) was M. Schirach, secretary of an Apiarian Society established at Little Bautzen in Upper Lusatia. He observed, that bees when shut up with a portion of comb, containing only worker brood, would soon erect royal cells, and thus obtain queens:—the experiment was frequently repeated, and the result was almost uniformly the same. In one instance he tried it with a single cell, and it succeeded[148]. This curious fact was communicated to the celebrated Bonnet, who, though he hesitated long before he admitted it, was at length fully convinced. M. Wilhelmi (Schirach's brother-in-law), though at first he accounted for the fact upon other principles, and objected strongly to the doctrine in question, induced by the powerful evidence in favour of it, at last gave up his former opinion, and embraced it. And, to mention no more, the great Aristomachus of modern times, M. Huber, by experiments repeated for ten years, was fully convinced of the truth of Schirach's position[149].

The fact in question, though the public attention was first called to it by the latter gentleman, had indeed been practically known long before he wrote. M. Vogel, in a letter to Wilhelmi, asserts that numerous experiments confirming this extraordinary fact had been made by more than a hundred different persons, in the course of more than a hundred years; and that he himself had known old cultivators of bees who had unanimously declared to him, that, when proper precautions were taken, in a practice of more than fifty years, the experiment had never failed[150]. Signor Monticelli, the Neapolitan professor before mentioned, informs us that the Greeks and Turks of the Ionian Islands know how to make artificial swarms; and that the art of producing queens at will has been practised by the inhabitants of a little Sicilian island called Favignana, from very remote antiquity; and he even brings arguments to prove that it was no secret to the Greeks and Romans[151], though had the practice been common it would surely have been noticed by Aristotle and Pliny.

Bonner, a British apiarist, asserts that he has had successful recourse to the Lusatian experiment[152]; and Mr. Payne of Shipdam in Norfolk (who for many years has been engaged in the culture of bees, and has paid particular attention to their proceedings) relates that he well remembers that the bees of one of his hives, which he discovered had lost their queen, were engaged in erecting some royal cells upon the ruins of some of the common ones. He also informs me that he has found Huber's statements, as far as he has had an opportunity of verifying them, perfectly accurate[153].

As I think you will allow that the evidence just detailed to you is abundantly sufficient to establish the fact in question, we will now see whether any satisfactory account can be given for such changes being produced by such causes. "It does not appear to me improbable," says Bonnet, "that a certain kind of nutriment, and in more than usual abundance, may cause a development in the grubs of bees, of organs which would never be developed without it. I can readily conceive also, that a habitation considerably more spacious, and differently placed, is absolutely necessary to the complete development of organs which the new nutriment may cause to grow in all directions[154]." And again, with respect to the wings of the queen bee, which do not exceed those of the workers in length, he thinks that this may arise from their being of a substance too stiff to admit of their extension. Those parts and points that were in a state to yield most easily to the action which this kind of nutriment produced, would be most prominent; and the vertical position of the grub and pupa, since nature does nothing in vain, may probably assist this action, and render the parts of the animal more capable of such extension than if it continued in a horizontal position.

We know, with respect to the human species and the larger animals, that numerous differences, both as to the form and relative proportion of parts, occur continually. The cause of these differences we cannot always ascertain; yet in many instances they may either be derived from the nutriment which the embryo receives in the womb, or from the greater or less dimensions or higher or lower temperature of that organ—a case that analogically would not be very wide of that of the grub or embryo of a bee inclosed in a cell. Some of the differences in man I now allude to, may often be caused by a particular diet in childhood; a warmer or a colder, a looser or a tighter dress, or the like. Thus, for instance, the Egyptians, who went bare-headed, had their skulls remarkably thick; while the Persians, who covered the head with a turban or mitre, were distinguished by the tenuity of theirs. Again, the inhabitants of certain districts are often remarkable for peculiarities of form, which are evidently produced by local circumstances.

The following reasoning may not be inapplicable to the development or non-development, according to their food and habitation, of the ovaries of these insects. An infant tightly swathed, as was formerly the custom, in swaddling bands, without being allowed the free play of its little limbs, fed with unwholesome food, or uncherished by genial warmth, may from these circumstances have so imperfect a development of its organs as to be in consequence devoted to sterility. When a cow brings forth two calves, and one of them is a female, it is always barren, and partakes in part of the characters of the other sex[155]. In this instance, the space and food that in ordinary cases are appropriated to one, are divided between two; so that a more contracted dwelling and a smaller share of nutriment seem to prevent the development of the ovaries.

The following observations, mostly taken from an essay of the celebrated anatomist John Hunter, in the Philosophical Transactions, since they are intimately connected with the subject that we are now considering, will not be here misplaced. In animals just born, or very young, there are no peculiarities of shape, exclusive of the primary distinctions, by which one sex may be known from the other. Thus secondary distinctive characters, such as the beard in men, and the breasts in women, are produced at a certain period of life; and these secondary characters, in some instances, are changed for those of the other sex; which does not arise from any action at the first formation, but takes place when the great command "Increase and multiply" ceases to operate. Thus women in advanced life are sometimes distinguished by beards; and after they have done laying, hen-birds occasionally assume the plumage of the cock; this has been observed more than once by ornithologists, more particularly with respect to the pheasant and the pea-hen[156].—For females to assume the secondary characters of males, seems certainly a more violent change, than for a worker bee, which may be regarded as a sterile female, in consequence of a certain process, to assume the secondary characters of a fertile female.

With respect to the variations of instinct and character which result from the different modes of rearing the young bees that we are now considering; it would not, I think, be difficult to prove, that causes at first sight equally inadequate have produced effects full as important on the habits, tempers, and characters of men and other animals: but as these will readily occur to you, I shall not now enlarge upon them.

Did we know the causes of the various deviations, as to form and the like, observable in the three kingdoms of nature, and could apply them, we should be able to produce these deviations at our pleasure. This is exactly what the bees do. Their instinct teaches them that a certain kind of food, supplied to a grub inhabiting a certain dwelling, in a certain position, will produce certain effects upon it, rendering it different from what it would have been under ordinary circumstances, and fitted to answer their peculiar wants.

I trust that these arguments and probabilities will in some degree reconcile you to what at first sight seems so extraordinary and extravagant a doctrine. If not yet fully satisfied, I can only recommend your having recourse to experiments yourself. Leaving you therefore to this best mode of proof, I shall proceed to another part of my history:—but first I must mention an experiment of Reaumur's, which seems to come well in here. To ascertain whether the expectation of a queen was sufficient to keep alive the instinct and industry of the worker-bees, he placed in a glazed hive some royal cells containing both grubs and pupæ, and then introduced about 1000 or 1500 workers and some drones. These workers, which had been deprived of their queen, at first destroyed some of the grubs in these cells; but they clustered around two that were covered in, as if to impart warmth to the pupæ they contained; and on the following day they began to work upon the portions of comb with which he had supplied them, in order to fix and lengthen them. For two or three days the work went on very leisurely, but afterwards their labours assumed their usual character of indefatigable industry[157]. There is no difficulty, therefore, when a hive loses its sovereign, to supply the bees with an object that will interest them, and keep their works in progress.

There are a few other facts with respect to the larvæ and pupæ of the bees, which, before I enter upon the history of them in their perfect form, I shall now detail to you. Sixteen days is the time assigned to a queen for her existence in her preparatory states, before she is ready to emerge from her cell. Three she remains in the egg; when hatched she continues feeding five more; when covered in she begins to spin her cocoon, which occupies another day: as if exhausted by this labour, she now remains perfectly still for two days and sixteen hours; and then assumes the pupa, in which state she remains exactly four days and eight hours—making in all the period I have just named. A longer time, by four days, is required to bring the workers to perfection; their preparatory states occupying twenty days, and those of the male even twenty-four. The former consumes half a day more than the queen in spinning its cocoon,—a circumstance most probably occasioned by a singular difference in the structure and dimensions of this envelope, which I shall explain to you presently. Thus you see that the peculiar circumstances which change the form and functions of a bee, accelerate its appearance as a perfect insect; and that by choosing a grub three days old, when the bees want a queen, they actually gain six days; for in this case she is ready to come forth in ten days, instead of sixteen, which would be required, was a recently laid egg fixed upon[158].

The larvæ of bees, though without feet, are not altogether without motion. They advance from their first station at the bottom of the cell, as I before hinted, in a spiral direction. This movement, for the first three days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible; but after this it is more easily discerned. The animal now makes two entire revolutions in about an hour and three quarters; and when the period of its metamorphosis arrives, it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its attitude, which is always the same, is a strong curve[159]. This occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it.

A most remarkable difference, as I lately observed, takes place in spinning their cocoons,—the grubs of workers and drones spinning complete cocoons, while those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or open at the lower end, and covering only the head and trunk and the first segment of the abdomen. This variation is probably occasioned by the different forms of the cells; for, if a female larva be placed in a worker's cell, it will spin a complete cocoon; and, vice versâ, if a worker larva be placed in a royal cell, its cocoon will be incomplete[160]. No provision of the Great Author of nature is in vain. In the present instance, the fact which we are considering is of great importance to the bees; for, were the females wholly covered by the thick texture of a cocoon, their destruction by their rival competitors for the throne could not so readily be accomplished; they either would not be able to reach them with their stings, or the stings might be detained by their barbs in the meshes of the cocoon, so that they would not be able to disengage them. On the use of this instinctive and murderous hatred of their rivals I shall soon enlarge.

When our young prisoners are ready to emerge, they do not, like the ants, require the assistance of the workers, but themselves eat through the cocoon and the cell that incloses it. By a wise provision, which prevents the injury or destruction of a cell, they generally make their way through the cover or lid with which the workers had shut it up; though sometimes, but not often, a female will break through the side of her prison.

Having thus shown you our little chemists in their preparatory states, and carried you from the egg to the cocoon, both of which may be deemed a kind of cradle, in which they are nursed to fit them for two very different conditions of existence, I must now introduce you to a scene more interesting and diversified; in which all their wonderful instincts are displayed in full action, and we see them exceed some of the most vaunted products of human wisdom, art, and skill.

The queen-mother here demands our first attention, as the personage upon whom, when established in her regal dignity, the welfare and happiness of the apiarian community altogether depend. I shall begin my history with the events that befall her on her quitting the royal cradle and appearing in the perfect state. And here you will find that the first moments of her life, prior to her election to lead a swarm or fill a vacant throne, are moments of the greatest uneasiness and vexation, if not of extreme peril and vindictive and mortal warfare. The Homeric maxim, that "the government of many is not good[161]," is fully adopted and rigorously adhered to in these societies. The jealous Semiramis of the hive will bear no rival near her throne. There are usually not less than sixteen, and sometimes not less than twenty, royal cells in the same nest; you may therefore conceive what a sacrifice is made when one only is suffered to live and to reign. But here a distinction obtains which should not be overlooked: in some instances a single queen only is wanted to govern her native hive; in others several are necessary to lead the swarms. In the first case, inevitable death is the lot of all but one; in the other, as many as are wanted are preserved from destruction by the precautions taken on that occasion, under the direction of an all-wise Providence, by the workers.

I shall enlarge a little on each of these cases. In the formicary, as we have seen, rival queens live together very harmoniously without molesting each other: but there is that instinctive jealousy in a queen bee, that no sooner does she discover the existence of another in the hive, than she is put into a state of the most extreme agitation, and is not easy until she has attacked and destroyed her.

Naturalists had observed, that when there were two queens in the same hive, one of them soon perished; but some supposed (this was the opinion of Schirach and Riem) that the workers destroyed the supernumeraries. Reaumur, however, conjectured that these queens attacked each other; and his conjecture has been since confirmed by the actual observation of other naturalists. Blassiere, the translator of Schirach, tells us, as what he had himself witnessed, that the strongest queen kills her rival with her sting; and the same is asserted by Huber, whose opportunities of observation were greater than those of any of his precursors[162].

The queen that is first liberated from her confinement, and has assumed the perfect or imago state (it is to be supposed that the author is here speaking of a hive which has lost the old queen), soon after this event goes to visit the royal cells that are still inhabited. She darts with fury upon the first with which she meets; by means of her jaws she gnaws a hole large enough to introduce the end of her abdomen, and with her sting, before the included female is in a condition to defend herself or resist her attack, she gives her a mortal wound. The workers, who remain passive spectators of this assassination, after she quits the victim of her jealousy, enlarge the breach that she has made, and drag forth the carcase of a queen just emerged from the thin membrane that envelopes the pupa. If the object of her attack be still in the pupa state, she is stimulated by a less violent degree of rage, and contents herself with making a breach in the cell: when this happens, the death of the inclosed insect is equally certain, for the workers enlarge the breach, pull it out, and it perishes[163]. If it happens, as it sometimes does, that two queens are disclosed at the same time, the care of Providence to prevent the hive from being wholly despoiled of a governor is singularly manifested by a remarkable trait in their instinct, which, when mutual destruction seems inevitable, makes them separate from each other as if panic-struck. "Two young queens," says M. Huber, "left their cells one day, almost at the same moment;—as soon as they came within sight, they darted upon each other, as if inflamed by the most ungovernable anger, and placed themselves in such an attitude, that the antennæ of each were held by the jaws of its antagonist; head was opposed to head, trunk to trunk, abdomen to abdomen; and they had only to bend the extremity of the latter, and they would have fallen reciprocal victims to each other's sting." But nature having decreed that these duels should not be fatal to both combatants, as soon as they were thus circumstanced a panic fear seemed to strike them, and they disengaged themselves, and each fled away. After a few minutes were expired, the attack was renewed in a similar manner with the same issue; till at last one suddenly seizing the other by her wing, mounted upon her and inflicted a mortal wound[164].

The combats I have here described to you took place between virgin queens; but M. Huber found that those which had been impregnated were actuated by the same animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury equally destructive. When another fertile queen had been introduced into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which proves how well aware the workers are that they cannot prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after she was introduced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, not to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the usual homage, but to confine her, and prevent her escape; for they insensibly agglomerated themselves in such numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, that in about a minute she was completely a prisoner. While this was transacting, what was equally remarkable, other workers assembled in clusters round the legitimate queen, and impeded all her motions; so that soon she was not more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the bees foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the two rivals, and were impatient for the event; for they only confined them when they appeared to avoid each other. To witness the homage, respect and love that they usually manifest to their lawful ruler; the anxiety concerning her which they often exhibit: and the distrust which for a time (as we shall see hereafter) they usually show towards strange ones even when deprived of their own; one would expect that, rather than permit such a perilous combat, they would unite in the defence of their sovereign, and cause the interloper to perish under the stroke of their fatal stings. But no; the contest for empire must be between the rival candidates: no worker must interfere in any other way than that which I have described; no contending armies must fight the battles of their sovereigns, for the law of succession seems to be "detur fortiori." But to return to my narrative. The legitimate queen appearing inclined to move towards that part of the comb on which her rival was stationed, the bees immediately began to retire from the space that intervened between them, so that there was soon a clear arena for the combat. When they could discern each other, the rightful queen rushing furiously upon the pretender, seized her with her jaws near the root of the wings, and, after fixing her without power of motion against the comb, with one stroke of her sting dispatched her. If ever-so-many queens are introduced into a hive, all but one will perish, and that one will have won the throne by her own unassisted valour and strength. Sometimes a strange queen attempts of herself to enter a hive: in this case the workers, who are upon the watch and who examine every thing that presents itself, immediately seize her with their jaws by the legs or wings, and hem her in so straitly with a clustered circle of guards, turning their heads on all sides towards her, that it is impossible for her to penetrate within. If they retain her prisoner too long, she dies either from the want of food or air, but never from their stings[165].

Here you may perhaps feel curious to know, supposing the reigning queen to die or be killed, and the bees to have discovered their loss, whether they would then receive a foreigner that offers herself to them or is introduced amongst them. Reaumur says they would do this immediately[166]; but Huber, who had better means of observing them, and studied them with more undivided attention, affirms that this will not be the case, unless twenty-four hours have elapsed since the death of the old queen. Previously to this period, as if they were absorbed by grief at their calamity, or indulged a fond hope of her revival, an intruder would be treated exactly as I have described. But when the period just mentioned is passed, they will receive any queen that is presented to them with the customary homage, and she may occupy the vacant throne[167].

I must now beg you to attend to what takes place in the second case that I mentioned, where queens are wanted to lead forth swarms. Here you will, with reason, suppose that nature has instilled some instinct into the bees, by which these necessary individuals are rescued from the fury of the reigning sovereign.

Did the old queen of the hive remain in it till the young ones were ready to come forth, her instinctive jealousy would lead her to attack them all as successively produced; and being so much older and stronger, the probability is that she would destroy them; in which case there could be no swarms, and the race would perish. But this is wisely prevented by a circumstance which invariably takes place—that the first swarm is conducted by this queen, and not by a newly disclosed one, as Reaumur and others have supposed. Previously to her departure, after her great laying of male eggs in the month of May, she oviposits in the royal cells when about three or four lines in length, which the workers have in the mean time constructed. These however are not all furnished in one day,—a most essential provision, in consequence of which the queens come forth successively, in order to lead successive swarms. There is something singular in the manner in which the workers treat the young queens that are to lead the swarms. After the cells are covered in, one of their first employments is to remove here and there a portion of the wax from their surface, so as to render it unequal; and immediately before the last metamorphosis takes place, the walls are so thin that all the motions of the inclosed pupa are perceptible through them. On the seventh day the part covering the head and trunk of the young female, if I may so speak, is almost entirely unwaxed. This operation of the bees facilitates her exit, and probably renders the evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the body of the pupa more easy.

You will conclude, perhaps, when all things are thus prepared for the coming forth of the inclosed female, that she will quit her cell at the regular period, which is seven days:—but you would be mistaken. Were she indeed permitted to pursue her own inclinations, this would be the case: but here the bees show how much they are guided in their instinct by circumstances and the wants of their society; for did the new queen leave her cell, she would immediately attack and destroy those in the other cells; a proceeding which they permit, as I have before stated, when they only want a successor to a defunct or a lost sovereign. As soon therefore as the workers perceive—which the transparency of the cell permits them to do—that the young queen has cut circularly through her cocoon, they immediately solder the cleft up with some particles of wax, and so keep her a prisoner against her will. Upon this, as if to complain of such treatment, she emits a distinct sound, which excites no pity in the breasts of her subjects, who detain her a prisoner two days longer than nature has assigned for her confinement. In the interim, she sometimes thrusts her tongue through the cleft she has made, drawing it in and out till she is noticed by the workers, to make them understand that she is in want of food. Upon perceiving this they give her honey, till her hunger being satisfied she draws her tongue back—upon which they stop the orifice with wax[168].

You may think it perhaps extraordinary that the workers should thus endeavour to retard the appearance of their young females beyond its natural limit; but when I explain to you the reason for this seeming incongruity of instinct, you will adore the wisdom that implanted it. Were a queen permitted to leave her cell as soon as the natural term for it arrived, it would require some time to fit her for flight, and to lead forth a swarm; during which interval a troublesome task would be imposed upon the workers, who must constantly detain her a prisoner to prevent her from destroying her rivals, which would require the labours and attention of a much larger number than are necessary to keep her confined to her cell. On this account they never suffer her to come forth till she is perfectly fit to take her flight. When at length she is permitted to do this, if she approaches the other royal cells, the workers on guard seem greatly irritated against her, and pull and bite and chase her away; and she enjoys tranquillity only while she keeps at a distance from them. As her instinct is constantly urging her to attack them, this proceeding is frequently repeated. Sometimes standing in a particular and commanding attitude, she utters that authoritative sound which so much affects the bees; they then all hang down their heads and remain motionless; but as soon as it ceases, they resume their opposition. At last she becomes violently agitated, and communicating her agitation to others, the confusion more and more increases, till a swarm leaves the hive, which she either precedes or follows. In the same manner the other young queens are treated while there are swarms to go forth; but when the hive is sufficiently thinned, and it becomes troublesome to guard them in the manner here described, they come forth unnoticed, and fight unimpeded till one alone remains to fill the deserted throne of the parent hive.—You see here the reason why the eggs that produce these queens are not laid at the same time, but after some interval, that they may come forth successively. For did they all make their appearance together, it would be a much more laborious and difficult task to keep them from destroying each other.

When the bees thus delay the entrance of the young queens into their world, they invariably let out the oldest first; and they probably know their progress to maturity by the emission of the sound lately mentioned. The accurate Huber took the trouble to mark all the royal cells in a hive as soon as the workers had covered them in, and he found that they were all liberated according to seniority. Those first covered first emit the sound, and so on successively; whence he conjectures that this is the sign by which the workers discover their age. As their captivity, however, is sometimes prolonged to eight or ten days, this circumstance in that time may be forgotten. In this case he supposes that their tones grow stronger as they grow older, by which the workers may be enabled to distinguish them. It is remarkable that no guard is placed round the mute queens bred according to the Lusatian method, which, when the time for their appearance is come, are not detained in captivity a single moment; but, as you have heard, are left to fight, conquer, or die[169].

You must not think, however, from what I have been saying, that the old queen never destroys the young ones previously to her leading forth the earliest swarm. She is allowed the most uncontrolled liberty of action; and if she chooses to approach and destroy the royal cells, her subjects do not oppose her. It sometimes happens, when unfavourable weather retards the first swarm, that all the royal progeny perishes by the sting of their mother, and then no swarm takes place. It is to be observed that she never attacks a royal cell till its inhabitant is ready to assume the pupa, therefore much will depend upon their age. When they arrive at this state, her horror of these cells, and aversion to them, are extreme: she attacks, perhaps, and destroys several; but finding it too laborious, for they are often numerous, to destroy the whole, the same agitation is caused in her as if she were forcibly prevented, and she becomes disposed to depart, rather than remain in the midst of her rivals, though her own offspring.

But though the bees, in one of these cases, appear such unconcerned spectators of the destruction of royal personages, or rather, the applauders and inciters of the bloody fact; and in the other show little respect to them, put such a restraint upon their persons, and manifest such disregard to their wishes; yet when they are once acknowledged as governors of the hive, and leaders of the colony, their instinct assumes a new and wonderful direction. From this moment they become the "publica cura," the objects of constant and universal attention; and wherever they go, are greeted by a homage which evinces the entire devotion of their subjects. You seemed amused and interested in no slight degree by what I related in a former letter of the marked respect paid by the ants to their females[170]: but this will bear no comparison with that shown by the inhabitants of the hive to their queen. She appears to be the very soul of all their actions, and the centre of their instincts. When they are deprived of her, or of the means of replacing her, they lose all their activity, and pursue no longer their daily labours. In vain the flowers tempt them with their nectar and ambrosial dust: they collect neither; they elaborate no wax, and build no cells; they scarcely seem to exist; and, indeed, would soon perish, were not the means of restoring their monarch put within their reach. But, if a small piece of comb containing the brood grubs of workers be given to them, all seem endued with new life: their instincts revive; they immediately set about building royal cells; they feed with their appropriate food the grubs they have selected, and every thing proceeds in the usual routine. Virgil has described this attachment of the bees to their sovereign with great truth and spirit in the following lines:

"Lydian nor Mede so much his king adores,
Nor those on Nilus' or Hydaspes' shores:
The state united stands while he remains,
But should he fall, what dire confusion reigns!
Their waxen combs and honey, late their joy,
With grief and rage distracted, they destroy:
He guards the works, with awe they him surround,
And crowd about him with triumphant sound;
Him frequent on their duteous shoulders bear,
Bleed, fall, and die for him in glorious war."

M. Huber thus describes the consequences of the loss of a queen.—When the queen is removed from a hive, at first the bees seem not to perceive it, their order and tranquillity not being disturbed, and their labours proceeding as usual. About an hour after her departure, inquietude begins to manifest itself amongst them; the care of the young brood no longer engages their attention, and they run here and there, as if in great agitation. This agitation, however, is at first confined to a small portion of the community. The bees that are first sensible of their loss meet with others, they mutually cross their antennæ, and strike them lightly. By this action they appear to communicate the sad intelligence to those who receive the blow, who in their turn impart it in the same way to others. Disorder and confusion increase rapidly, till the whole population is in a tumult. Then the workers may be seen running over the combs, and against each other; impetuously rushing to the entrance and quitting the hive; from thence they spread themselves all around, they re-enter, and go out again and again. The hum in the hive becomes very loud, and increases the tumult, which lasts two or three hours, rarely four or five: they then return and resume their wonted care of the young; and if the hive be visited twenty-four hours after the departure of the queen, it will be seen that they have taken steps to repair their loss by filling some of the cells with a larger quantity of jelly than is the usual portion of common larvæ; which however is intended, it seems, not for the food of the inhabitant, but for a cushion to elevate it, since it is found unconsumed in the cell when the grub has descended into the pyramidal habitation afterwards prepared for it[171].

If, after being removed, their old queen is restored to the hive, they instantly recognise her, and pay her the usual attentions; but if a strange one be introduced within the first twelve hours after the old one is lost, she is kept a close prisoner till she perishes: if twenty-four hours, as I have before hinted, have expired since they lost their queen, and you introduce a new one, at the moment you set this stranger upon a comb, the workers that are near her first touch her with their antennæ, and then pass their proboscis over all parts of her body: place is next given to others, who salute her in the same manner:—all then beat their wings at the same time, and range themselves in a circle round their new sovereign. A kind of agitation is now communicated to the whole surface of the comb, which brings all the bees upon it to see what is going forward. This may be called the first shout of the applauding multitude to welcome the arrival of their new sovereign. The circle of courtiers increases, they vibrate their wings and bodies, but without tumult, as if their sensations were very agreeable. When she begins to move, the circle opens to let her pass, and all follow her steps. She is received with similar demonstrations of loyalty in the other parts of the hive, is soon acknowledged queen by all, and begins to lay eggs.—Reaumur put some bees into a hive without their queen, and then introduced to them one that he had taken when half perished with cold, and kept in a box, in which she had covered herself with powder. The bees immediately owned her for their queen, employed themselves very anxiously in cleaning her and warming her, sometimes turning her upon her back for this purpose—and then began to construct cells in their new habitation[172]. Even when the bees have got young brood, have built or are building royal cells, and are engaged in feeding these hopes of their hive, knowing that their great aim is already accomplished, they cease all these employments when this intruder comes amongst them.

With regard to the ordinary attention and homage that they pay to their sovereigns—the bees do more than respect their queen, says Reaumur, they are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her, and to render her every kind office; they are for ever offering her honey; they lick her with their proboscis, and whereever she goes she has a court to attend upon her[173]. It may here be observed, that the stimulant which excites the bees to these acts of homage is the pregnant state of their queen, and her fitness to maintain the population of the hive; all they do being with a view to the public good: for while she remains a virgin she is treated with the utmost indifference, which is exchanged, as soon as impregnation has taken place, for the above marks of attachment[174].

The instinct of the bees, however, does not always enable them to distinguish a partially fertile queen from one that is universally so. What I mean is this—A queen, whose impregnation is retarded beyond the twenty-eighth day of her whole existence, lays only male eggs, which are of no use whatever to the community, unless they are at the same time provided with a sufficient supply of workers. Yet even a queen of this description, and sometimes one that is entirely sterile, is treated by them with the same respect and homage as a fertile one. This seems to evince an amiable feeling in these creatures, attachment to the person as well as to the functions of the sovereign; which is further manifested by their unwillingness at first to receive a new sovereign upon the loss or death of their old one. Nay, this respect is sometimes shown to the carcase of a defunct queen, which Huber assures us he has seen bees treat with the same attention that they had shown her when alive; for a long time preferring her inanimate corpse to the fertile queens that he offered to them[175]. He attributes this to some agreeable sensation which they experience from their queens, independent of their fecundity. But since virgin queens, as we have seen, do not excite it, more probably it is a remnant of their former attachment, first excited by her fecundity, and afterwards strengthened and continued by habit.

I may here introduce an interesting anecdote related by Reaumur, which strongly marks the attachment of bees to their queen when apparently lifeless. He took one out of the water quite motionless, and seemingly dead, which had lost part of one of its legs. Bringing it home, he placed it amongst some workers that he had found in the same situation, most of which he had revived by means of warmth; some however still being in as bad a state as the poor queen. No sooner did these revived workers perceive the latter in this wretched condition, than they appeared to compassionate her case, and did not cease to lick her with their tongues till she showed signs of returning animation; which the bees no sooner perceived, than they set up a general hum, as if for joy at the happy event. All this time they paid no attention to the workers who were in the same miserable state[176].

On a former occasion I have mentioned the laying of the eggs by the queen[177]; but as I did not then at all enlarge upon it, I shall now explain the process more in detail. In a subsequent letter I shall notice, what has so much puzzled learned apiarists—her fecundation: which is now ascertained beyond contradiction, from the observations of M. Huber, to take place in the open air, and to be followed by the death of the unfortunate male[178]. It is to be recollected that, from September to April, generally speaking, there are no males in the hives; yet during this period the queen often oviposits: a former fecundation, therefore, must fertilize all the eggs laid in this interval. The impregnation, in order to ensure complete fertility, must not be too long retarded: for, as I before observed, if this be delayed beyond the twenty-eighth day of her existence, her ovaries become so vitiated, that she can no longer lay eggs that will produce workers, but can only furnish the hive with a male population; which, however high a privilege it may be accounted amongst men, is the reverse of it amongst the bees. When this is the case, the abdomen of the queen becomes so enlarged that she is no longer able to fly[179]; and, what is remarkable, she loses that instinctive animosity which stimulates the fertile ones to attack their rivals[180]. Thus she seems to own that she is not equal to the duties of her station, and can tolerate another to discharge them in her room. When we consider how much virgin queens are slighted by their subjects, we may suppose that nature urges them to take the opportunity of the first warm day, when the males fly forth, to pair with one of them.

When fecundation has not been retarded, forty-six hours after it has taken place, the queen begins to lay eggs that will produce workers, and continues for the subsequent eleven months, more or less, to lay them solely; and it is only after this period that an uninterrupted laying of male eggs commences.—But when it has been retarded, after the same number of hours she begins laying male eggs, and continues to produce these alone during her whole life. From hence it should seem to follow, that the former kind of eggs are first in the oviducts, and, if impregnation be not effected within a given time, that all the worker embryos perish. Yet how this can take place with respect to those that in a fertile queen should succeed the laying of male eggs, or be produced in the second year of her life, seems difficult to conceive;—or how the male embryos escape this fate, which destroys all the female, both those that are to precede them and those that are to follow them. Is it impossible that the sex of the embryo may be determined by the period at which the aura seminalis vivifies it, and by the state of the ovary at that time? In one state of the ovary this principle may cause the embryos to become workers, in another males. And something of this kind perhaps may be the cause of hermaphrodites in other animals. But this I give merely as conjecture[181]: the truth seems enveloped in mystery that we cannot yet penetrate. Huber is of opinion that a single impregnation fertilizes all the eggs that a queen will produce during her whole life, which is sometimes more than two years[182]. But of this enough.

I said that forty-six hours after impregnation the queen begins laying worker eggs;—this is not, however, invariable. When her impregnation takes place late in the year, she does not begin laying till the following spring. Schirach asserts, that in one season a single female will lay from 70,000 to 100,000 eggs[183]. Reaumur says, that upon an average she lays about two hundred in a day, a moderate swarm consisting of 12,000, which are laid in two months; and Huber, that she lays above a hundred. All these statements, the observations being made in different climates, and perhaps under different circumstances, may be true. The laying of worker eggs begins in February, sometimes so early as January[184]. After this, in the spring, the great laying of male eggs commences, lasting thirty days; in which time about 2000 of these eggs are laid. Another laying of them, but less considerable, takes place in autumn. In the season of oviposition, the queen may be discerned traversing the combs in all directions with a slow step, and seeking for cells proper to receive her eggs. As she walks she keeps her head inclined, and seems to examine, one by one, all the cells she meets with. When she finds one to her purpose, she immediately gives to her abdomen the curve necessary to enable it to reach the orifice of the cell, and to introduce it within it. The eggs are set in the angle of the pyramidal bottom of the cell, or in one of the hollows formed by the conflux of the sides of the rhombs, and, being besmeared with a kind of gluten, stand upright. If, however, it be a female that lays only male eggs, they are deposited upon the lowest of the sides of the cell, as she is unable to reach the bottom[185].

While our prolific lady is engaged in this employment, her court consists of from four to twelve attendants, which are disposed nearly in a circle, with their heads turned towards her. After laying from two to six eggs, she remains still, reposing for eight or nine minutes. During this interval the bees in her train redouble their attentions, licking her fondly with their tongues. Generally speaking, she lays only one egg in a cell; but when she is pressed, and there are not cells enough, from two to four have been found in one. In this case, as if they were aware of the consequences, the provident workers remove all but one. From an experiment of Huber's, it appears that the instinct of the queen invariably directs her to deposit worker eggs in worker cells; for when he confined one, during her course of laying worker eggs, where she could only come at male cells, she refused to oviposit in them; and trying in vain to make her escape, they at length dropped from her; upon which the workers devoured them. Retarded queens, however, lose this instinct, and often, though they lay only male eggs, oviposit in worker cells and even in royal ones. In this latter case the workers themselves act as if they suffered in their instinct from the imperfect state of their queen; for they feed these male larvæ with royal jelly, and treat them as they would a real queen. Though male eggs deposited in worker cells produce small males, their education in a royal cell with "royal dainties" adds nothing to their ordinary dimensions[186].

The swarming of bees is a very curious and interesting subject, to which, since a female is the sine quâ non on this occasion, I may very properly call your attention here. You will recollect that I said something upon the principle of emigrations, when I was amusing you with the history of ants[187]; but the object with them seems to be merely a change of station for one more convenient or less exposed to injury, and not to diminish a superabundant population. Whereas in the societies of the hive-bee, the latter is the general cause of emigrations, which invariably take place every year, if their numbers require it; if not, when the male eggs are laid, no royal cells are constructed, and no swarm is led forth. What might be the case with ants, were they confined to hives, we cannot say. Formicaries in general are capable of indefinite enlargement, therefore want of room does not cause emigration;—but bees being confined to a given space, which they possess not the means of enlarging,—to avoid the ill effects resulting from being too much crowded, when their population exceeds a certain limit, they must necessarily emigrate. Sometimes—for instance, when wasps have got into a hive—the bees will leave it, in order to fly from an inconvenience or enemy which they cannot otherwise avoid; but it does not very often happen that they wholly desert a hive.

Apiarists tell us that, in this country, the best season for swarming is from the middle of May to the middle of June; but swarms sometimes occur so early as the beginning of April, and as late as the middle of August[188]. The first swarm, as I before observed, is led by the reigning queen, and takes place when she is so much reduced in size, in consequence of the number of eggs she has laid, (for previously to oviposition her gravid body is so heavy that she can scarcely drag it along,) as to enable her to fly with ease. The most indubitable sign that a hive is preparing to swarm,—so says Reaumur,—is when on a sunny morning, the weather being favourable to their labours, few bees go out of a hive, from which on the preceding day they had issued in great numbers, and little pollen is collected. This circumstance, he observes, must be very embarrassing to one who attempts to explain all their proceedings upon principles purely mechanical. Does it not prove, he asks, that all the inhabitants of a hive, or almost all, are aware of a project that will not be put in execution before noon, or some hours later? For why should bees, who worked the day before with so much activity, cease their labours in a habitation which they are to quit at noon, were they not aware that they should soon abandon it[189]? The appearance of the males, and the clustering of the population at the mouth of the hive, (though this last is less to be relied upon, being often occasioned by extreme heat,) are also indications of the approach of this event. A good deal depends, however, on the warmth of the atmosphere and the state of the weather either to accelerate or retard it. Another sign is a general hum in the evening, which is continued even during the night,—all seems to be in a bustle, the greatest restlessness agitates the bees. Sometimes to hear this hum the ear must be placed close to the hive, when clear and sharp sounds may be distinguished, which appear to be produced by the vibration of the wings of a single bee. This hum by some has been gravely construed into an harangue of the queen to animate her subjects to the great undertaking which she now meditates—the founding of a new empire. There sometimes seem to happen suddenly amongst them, says Reaumur, events which put all the bees in motion, for which no account can be given. If you observe a hive with attention, you may often remain a long time and hear only a slight murmur, and then, all in a moment, a sonorous hum will be excited, and the workers, as if seized with a panic terror, may be seen quitting their various labours, and running off in different directions. At these moments if a young queen goes out, she will be followed by a numerous troop.

Huber has given a very lively and interesting account of the interior proceedings of the hive on this occasion. The queen, as soon as she began to exhibit signs of agitation, no longer laid her eggs with order as before, but irregularly, as if she did not know what she was about. She ran over the bees in her way; they in their turn struck her with their antennæ, and mounted upon her back; none offered her honey, but she helped herself to it from the cells in her path. The usual homage of a court attending round her was no longer paid. Those however that were excited by her motions followed her, rousing such as were still tranquil upon the combs. She soon had traversed the whole hive, when the agitation became general. The workers, now no longer attentive to the young brood, ran about in all directions; even those that returned from foraging, before the agitation was at its height, no sooner entered the hive than they participated in these tumultuous movements, and, neglecting to free themselves from the masses of pollen on their hind legs, ran wildly about. At length there was a general rush to the outlets of the hive, which the queen accompanied, and the swarm took place[190].

It is to be observed that this agitation, excited by the queen, increases the customary heat of the hive to a very high temperature, which the action of the sun augments till it becomes intolerable, and which often causes the bees accumulated near the mouth of the hive to perspire so copiously, that those near the bottom, who support the weight of the rest, appear drenched with the moisture. This intolerable heat determines the most irresolute to leave the hive. Immediately before the swarming, a louder hum than usual is heard, many bees take flight, and, if the queen be at their head, or soon follows them, in a moment the rest rise in crowds after her into the air, and the element is filled with bees as thick as the falling snow. The queen at first does not alight upon the branch on which the swarm fixes; but as soon as a group is formed and clustered, she joins it: after this it thickens more and more, all the bees that are in the air hastening to their companions and their queen, so as to form a living mass of animals supporting themselves upon each by the claws of their feet. Thus they sometimes are so concatenated, each bee suspending its legs to those of another, as to form living chaplets[191]. After this they soon become tranquil, and none are seen in the air. Before they are housed they often begin to construct a little comb on the branch on which they alight[192]. Sometimes it happens that two queens go out with the same swarm; and the result is, that the swarm at first divides into two bodies, one under each leader; but as one of these groups is generally much less numerous than the other, the smallest at last joins the largest, accompanied by the queen to whom they had attached themselves; and, when they are hived, this unfortunate candidate for empire falls sooner or later a victim to the jealousy of her rival. Till this great question is decided, the bees do not settle to their usual labours.[192] If no queen goes out with a swarm, they return to the hive from whence they came.

As in regular monarchies, so in this of the bees, the first-born is probably the fortunate candidate for the throne. She is usually the most active and vigorous; the most able to take flight; and in the best condition to lay eggs. Though the queen that is victorious, and mounts the throne, is not, as Virgil asserts, resplendent with gold and purple, and her rival hideous, slothful and unwieldy[193], yet some differences are observable; the successful candidate is usually redder and larger than the others; these last, upon dissection, appear to have no eggs ready for laying, while the former, which is a powerful recommendation, is usually full of them. Eggs are commonly found in the cells twenty-four hours after swarming, or at the latest two or three days.

You may think, perhaps, that the bees which emigrate from the parent hive are the youth of the colony; but this is not the case, for bees of all ages unite to form the swarms. The numbers of which they consist vary much. Reaumur calls 12,000 a moderate swarm; and he mentions one which amounted to more than three times that number (40,000). A swarm seldom or never takes place except when the sun shines and the air is calm. Sometimes, when every thing seems to prognosticate swarming, a cloud passing over the sun calms the agitation; and afterwards, upon his shining forth again, the tumult is renewed, keeps augmenting, and the swarm departs[194]. On this account the confinement of the queens, before related, is observed to be more protracted in bad weather.

The longest interval between the swarms is from seven to nine days, which usually is the space that intervenes between the first and the second. The next flies sooner, and the last sometimes departs the day after that which preceded it. Fifteen or eighteen days, in favourable weather, are usually sufficient for throwing the four swarms. The old queen, when she takes flight with the first swarm, leaves plenty of brood in the cells, which soon renew the population[195].

It is not without example, though it rarely happens, that a swarm conducted by the old queen increases so much in the space of three weeks as to send forth a new colony. Being already impregnated, she is in a condition to oviposit as soon as there are cells ready to receive her eggs: and an all-wise Providence has so ordered it, that at this time she lays only such as produce workers. And it is the first employment of her subjects to construct cells for this purpose[196]. The young queens that conduct the secondary swarms usually pair the day after they are settled in their new abode; when the indifference with which their subjects have hitherto treated them is exchanged for the usual respect and homage.

We may suppose that one motive with the bees for following the old queen, is their respect for her; but the reasons that induce them to follow the virgin queens, to whom they not only appear to manifest no attachment, but rather the reverse, seem less easy to be assigned. Probably the high temperature of the hive during these times of tumultuous agitation may be the principal cause that operates upon them. In a populous hive the thermometer commonly stands between 92° and 97°; but during the tumult that precedes swarming it rises above 104°, a heat intolerable to these animals[197]. This is M. Huber's opinion. Yet still, though a high temperature will well account for the departure of the swarm from the hive with a virgin queen, if there were really no attachment, (as he appears to think,) is it not extraordinary, that when this cause no longer operates upon them, they should agglomerate about her, as they always do, be unsettled and agitated without her, and quiet when she is with them? Is it not reasonable to suppose that the instinct which teaches them what is necessary for the preservation of their society,—at the same time that it shows them that without a queen that society cannot be preserved,—impells them in every case to the mode of treating her which will most effectually influence her conduct, and give it that direction which is most beneficial to the community?