A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

smaller. These eggs then acquire a sensible growth, and the longest are the only ones which this naturalist has seen disclosed. Whether the workers communicate to them a necessary degree of humidity, or whether they have any other secret for preserving them, it is certain that the most advanced eggs dry up and perish, if they are removed from the care of these ants. The larv issue from their shells in fifteen days after the laying, and their body is then perfectly transparent: many workers

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

placed by the nursing ants in the lodges most remote from the centre of the domicile, or are heaped up together in some other lodges; sometimes they are transported to the exterior surface of the habitation, or even to a considerable distance from it. The nests of the ash-coloured ants present naked nymphs, or nymphs shut up in their cocoons. M. Huber has often seen the neuters open the cocoons, a little time after the larv had been metamorphosed into nymphs. The mining ants do the same. But

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

one or two other species, beside the original founders. These last individuals have been taken away by force from their own societies, in their early age, by the workers of these mixed hordes, and when arrived to the perfect state, become the auxiliaries of the others, or are even exclusively charged with the labours of the ant-hill, and the education both of the family of their ravishers, and of the young of their own species, which have undergone the same fate. All the neuter warrior ants

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

themselves an opening in the lateral part of the ant-hill. This enterprize succeeded, and the rest of the army penetrated through the breach into the besieged citadel. They made no long stop there; three or four minutes afterwards, the rufescent ants re-issued through the same passages, each holding in his mouth a larva or a nymph, belonging to the invaded ant-hill. They resumed precisely the route by which they had come, and proceeded, without order, one after the other. Their troop was

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

the ash-coloured ants immediately took possession of these viands. He also presented them with honey and fruits, but equally to no purpose. When they are hungry, they approach their auxiliary ants, and the latter disgorge into their mouth the juices which they have derived from their intercourse with the aphides. This observer never saw them take nourishment in any other manner. He has often put his hands across the army in its march, and the amazons passed quietly between his fingers, without

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

colour contrasts with that of their conductors, extends along the road which communicates from the new city to the old. The males and females are brought in succession, and deposited before the gate, where other ash-coloured ants take them up with their mandibles, and conduct them into the interior of the nest. The transportation of the larv and nymphs finally terminates this operation. There are to be seen constantly around the ant-hill, ash-coloured ants, some of which go to a distance to

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

ants, their tender solicitude for the amazons and their nurselings, the neglect and inertia of the latter, respecting all domestic duties and their own wants, their military excursions, and the departure of the winged individuals. Once, however, he observed one of these amazons occupied in removing the last pellicle from an ash-coloured nymph, which was ready to make use of its limbs, and conducting this operation with the same delicacy with which the other ants perform it. He remarked that the

A761.07    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 7: Aves (2).   Text

on the top of the head, and the female is without that colour. This species goes less to the southward, and is more rare in France, than the preceding, with which it corresponds in habits. Ants are its favourite food. Greater Spotted Woodpecker. (Picus Major.) Enl. 196 the male, 595 female. Naum. 134. Of the size of a thrush; varied above with black and white; the back and the rump black; underneath white; about the vent red, with a red spot also on the occiput of the male. The young has

A761.14    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 14: Insecta (1).   Text

; while those of the wasps are always horizontal, and present but a single range of cells. The society of wasps is temporary; that of bees, whose regime is monarchical, is durable, and only ceases from accidental circumstances. Our domestic bee can live in every climate: it can brave the wintry breath of Siberia, and the heats of the torrid zone. The societies of which we have been speaking hitherto are all composed of individuals of the same species; but two sorts of ants, commonly called the

A761.15    Beagle Library:     Cuvier, Georges. 1827-35. The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization. With additional descriptions of all the species hitherto named, and of many not before noticed, by Edward Griffith and others. 16 vols. London: Geo. B. Whittaker. vol. 15: Insecta (2).   Text

conjectures, that the working ants proportion the quality of the regimen of the larv , to their differences of age and sex. They keep them in a state of the most extreme cleanliness, constantly cleaning their bodies with their tongue and mandibles. Near the epoch of their transformation, they pull off their skin, which is softened and relaxed. The larv of certain ants pass the winter heaped together at the bottom of their chambers. The body of those which VOL. XV. 2 G [page] 45