Nothing is more amusing than to observe the shifts ants are put to in transporting objects of great size. They stumble, they tumble head over heels, they roll down precipices; but, in spite of all accidents, return to their task, and always accomplish it. 70

The tranquil inhabitants of these subterranean republics are bound together by mutual affection in a devoted fraternity, which makes them ever ready to assist each other. They all help one another as much as they can. If an ant is tired, a comrade carries it on its back. Those which are so absorbed with their work that they have no time to think of their tood, are fed by their companions. When an ant is wounded, the first one who meets it renders it assistance, and carries it home. Latreille having torn the antennae from an ant, saw another approach the poor wounded one, and pour, with its; tongue, a few drops of a yellow liquid on the bleeding wound.

Huber the younger one day took an ant's nest to populate one of those glass contrivances which he used for making his observations, and which consisted of a sort of glass bell placed over the nest. Our naturalist set at liberty one part of the ants, which fixed themselves at the foot of a neighbouring chestnut tree. The rest were kept during four months in the apparatus, and at the end of this time Huber moved the whole into the garden, and a few ants managed to escape. Having met their old companions, who still lived at the foot of the chestnut tree, they recognised them. They were seen, in fact, all of them, to gesticulate, to caress each other mutually with their antennae, to take each other by the mandibles, as if to embrace in token of joy, and they then re-entered together the nest at the foot of the chestnut tree. Very soon they came in a crowd to look for the other ants under

the bell, and in a few hours our observer's apparatus was completely evacuated by its prisoners. When an ant has discovered any rich prey, fiir from enjoying it alone, like a gourmand, it invites all its companions to the feast. Community of goods and interests exists amongst all the members of this model society. It is the practical realisation of the dream formed by certain philosophers of our day, who were only able to conceive the idea, the possibility, the project of such a community of goods and interests, which is among ants a reality. How do these insects manage to make themselves understood in such various ways, asking for help, giving advice, giving invitations? They must have a language of their own, or else they must communicate their impressions by the play of their antennae.

When an ant is hungry, and does not wish to disturb itself from its work, it tells a foraging ant as it passes, by touching it with its antennae; the latter approaches it immediately, and presents it, on the end of its tongue, some juice it has disgorged for this purpose. The antennae, then, are used by the ants for the purpose of making themselves understood by each other. Dr. Ebrard. who studied these

HYMENOPTERA, 38/

insects attentively, is of opinion that they use them in the same way as a bhnd man does his stick, to feel their way with, for their sight is not good. The age to which ants live is not well known. It is believed that the workers live many years.

Ants eat all sorts of things. One sees them eating fresh or decaying meat, fruits, flowers, particularly everything which is sugary. They attack living insects, and kill them and suck their blood. Like many insects, they are very fond of sugary liquids — honey, syrups, pure sugar, &c. Dupont de Nemours relates in his Memoirs that, to guarantee his sugar-basin against the invasion of ants, he had found no better plan than to make it " an island," that is to say, to place itin the middle of a vessel full of water. He felt sure that he had made the fortress safe against any attack; but listen to the stratagem made use of by the besiegers. The ants climbed up the wall to the ceiling, exactly perpendicularly over the sugar-basin. From there they let themselves fall into the interior of the place, penetrating thus by main force, and without injuring any one, into the magazine. As the ceiling was very high, the draught caused them to deviate from the straight line, and thus a certain number fell into the fosse of the citadel, that is to say, into the water in the vessel. Their companions stationed on the bank made all efforts imaginable to fish out the drowning ants, but were afraid of taking to the water of such a large lake. All that they could do was to stretch out their bodies as far as possible (keeping on the bank the while), to lend a helping hand to their drowning friends. Nevertheless, the salvage did not progress much; when the ants, which were getting very uneasy, conceived ahappy thought. A it^ were seen to run to the ant-hill, and then to re-appear. They brought with them a squad of eight grena-diers, who threw themselves into the water without any hesitation, and who, swimming vigorously, seized with their pincers all the drowning ants, and brought them all on to terra Jirma. Eleven, half-dead, were thus brought to shore, that is, to the rim of the basin. They would probably all of them have succumbed, if their companions had not hastened to lend them assistance. They' rolled them in the dust, they brushed them, they rubbed them, they stretched themselves on their dying companions to warm them; then they rolled them and rubbed them again. Four were restored to life. A fifth half recovered, and, still moving its legs and its antennae a little, was taken home with all sorts of precautions. The six others were dead. They were carried into the ant-hill by their afflicted companions. It seems like a dream to read such things as this, and yet Dupont de Nemours tells us, " I have seen it!"

Ants are also very fond of a peculiar liquid which the plant-lice secrete from a pouch in the abdomen. When they have got possession of a plant-louse, they excite it to secrete this liquid, but without doing it any harm. They carry the plant-lice into the ant-hill, or into private stables. There they keep them, give them their food, and suck them. We have already mentioned these curious relations which are established between ants and plant-lice.* Fig. 367 shows an ant thus occupied. The Gallinsecta also furnish the ants with sugary liquids. During the cold of winter the ants sleep at the bottom of their nests, without taking any food. A small number of species only hold out through the severe season, by shutting themselves up in the anthill with a number of plant-lice. It is thus that they pass the winter with a supply of food. We must mention, however, that in warm countries the ants do not hybernate.

We have just described ant society during the quiet periods, when peace reigns supreme; but they are not more exempt than other animals from the necessities and dangers of war. They have a great many enemies among the population of the woods; they must, then, be prepared to repel their attacks. They display in that the most scientific resources of the military art applied to defence.

It is almost needless to say that the sentinels are, at all times, posted at a reasonable distance from the ant-hill, to observe the environs. When the fortress is unexpectedly attacked, whether by large insects, Coleoptera for instance, or by the ants from a neighbouring nest, these vigilant sentinels immediately fall back and give the alarm to the camp, not, however, without having boldly confronted the enemy and opposed to him an honourable resistance. Having re-entered the nest in all haste, they precipitate themselves into the passages, tapping with their antennae all the ants which they meet, and thus spreading the alarm in the city. Very soon the agitation has become general, and thousands of combatants sally forth from the citadel, ready to repel the attack and make the enemy bite the dust.

The possession of a flock of plant-lice is sometimes a subject of discord, and becomes a casus belli between two neighbouring ant-hills. But, usually, the war has for its object to make prisoners in other

nests, and to carry oft' part of the inhabitants as slaves. This is the origin of mixed ant-hills, which, independently of their natural founders, contain one or two foreign species, helots whom the con-querors have taken away from their birth-place, to make of them

See the Order Hemiptera^ mpra. — Ed.

Fig. 367. — Ant milking Aphis or Plant-louse (magnified).

auxiliaries and slaves. In these mixed ant-hills the species imported occasionally exceed in number the original population, as it happens

sometimes in those ships which are used in the slave trade, and on which the slaves are often found in greater numbers than the sailors composing the crew. The phalanx of ants reduced to a state of slavery pay all sorts of attentions to their masters. They lick them, brush them, caress them, carry theip on their backs, feed them — good

Fig. 368. — Russet Ants (^Polyergus ru/esceus).

and faithful servants that they are — and even rear their progeny. The masters impose on their slaves all sorts of work. They only reserve for themselves the making of war. Yrom time to time they

undertake expeditions against some neighbouring ants' nest. If they are conquered and come back without bringing with them any prisoners, the slaves or auxiliaries are sulky to them, and will not

Fig. 369. — Blood-red Ant {Formica sanguinca).

allow them for some time to enter the nest. It, on the contrary, they return loaded with booty, they flatter them, give them food, and relieve them of their prisoners, which they lead away into the

interior of the fortress. The warlike tribes, however, never carry oft' any other but the larvae and nymphs of workers from the ant-hills they plunder. These young captives get used to their kidnappers: brought up in fear of their masters, they never think of abandoning them. Two species constitute the warrior tribes which form societies mixed with the species they reduce to slavery. They are the Russet Ant (Fig. 368) and the Blood-red Ant (Fig. 369). They always attack the nests of the Ashy-black (Formica fusca) and the Miners.

The Russet Ant has mandibles made for war; they appear cut out for struggling and fighting. The Blood-red Ants are less ferocious; they work themselves, and make none of those sweeping raids by which the Russet Ants depopulate the neighbouring ant-hills.

What Francis Hub^r has done for bees, Peter Huber, his son, has done for ants. It is from Francis Huber that we borrow the description which it remains for us to give of the habits of ants in times of war. He thus relates one of these expeditions, of which he

was a witness:— "On the 17th of June, 1804,'' says he, "as 1 was walking in the environs of Geneva, between four and five in the afternoon, I saw at my feet a legion of largish russet ants crossing the road. They were marching in a body with rapidity, their troop occupied a space of from eight to ten feet long by three or four inches wide; in a few minutes they had entirely evacuated the road; they penetrated through a very thick hedge, and went into a meadow, whither I followed them. They wound their way along the turf, without straying^ and their column remained always continuous, in spite of the obstacles which they had to surmount. Very soon they arrived near a nest of ashy-black ants, the dome of which rose among the grass, at twenty paces from the hedge. A few ants of this species were at the door of their habitation. As soon as they descried the army which was approaching, they threw themselves on those which were at the head of the cohort. The alarm spread at the same instant in the interior of the nest, and their companions rushed out in crowds from all the subterranean passages. The russet ants, the body of whose army was only two paces distant, hastened to arrive at the foot of the nest; the whole troop precipitated itself forward at the same time, and knocked the ashy-black ants head over heels, who, after a short but very smart combat, retired to the extremity of the habitation. The russet ants clambered up the sides of the hillock, flocked to the summit, and introduced themselves in great numbers into the first avenues; other groups worked with their teeth, making a lateral aperture. In this they succeeded, and the rest of the army penetrated through the breach into the besieged city. They did not make a long stay there; in three or four minutes the russet ants came out again in haste, by the same adits, carrying each one in its mouth a pupa or larva belonging to the conquered. They again took exactly the same road by which they had come, and followed each other in a straggling manner; their line was easily to be distinguished on the grass by the appearance which this multitude of white cocoons and larv^, carried by as many russet-coloured ants, presented. They passed through the hedge a second time, crossed

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