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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 exproprio 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 VOL. II. E [page] 5

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 backa? 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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

CONTENTS OF VOL. II. Letter XVI. Societies of Insects. Page 1. Imperfect Societies, 1 25 XVII. Societies of Insects continued. 2. Perfect Societies. White Ants. Ants, 26 106 XVIII. Perfect Societies of Insects continued. Wasps. Humble-bees, 107 120 XIX. Perfect Societies of Insects continued. Hive-bee, 121 170 XX. Perfect Societies of Insects concluded. Hive-bee, 171 217 XXI. Means by which Insectsdefend themselves, 218 269 XXII. Motions of Insects. Larva and Pupa, 270 303 XXIII. Motions of

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A793.1 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 1. Text

Knox tells us that they are eaten in Ceylona: an ungrateful return for their honey and wax which I would on no account recommend. Piso speaks of yellow ants called Cupi inhabiting Brazil, the abdomen of which many used for food, as well as a larger species under the name of Tama-jourab; which account is confirmed by Humboldt, who informs us that ants are eaten by the Marivatanos and Margueritares, mixed with resin for sauce. Ants, I speak from experience, have no unpleasant flavors; they are

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A793.1 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 1. Text

as well as providing for their own subsistence, falls to the lot of the working ants, we are almost ready to regard the burthen as greater than can be borne by such minute agents; and we shall not wonder at the incessant activity with which we see them foraging on every side. Their labour does not end here. It is necessary that the larv should be kept extremely clean; and for this purpose the ants are perpetually passing their tongue and mandibles over their body, rendering them by this means

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

bees of the Isle of France to that of Canna indicaa; and I have myself more than once noticed holes at the base of the long nectaries of Aquilegia vulgaris, which I attribute to the same agency. My second fact is supplied by the same ants, whose sagacious choice of the vicinity of Reaumur's glass hives for their colony has been just related to you. He tells us that of these ants, of which there were such swarms on the outside of the hive, not a single one was ever perceived within; and infers

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A793.1 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 1. Text

concerns he who never deigned to open his eyes to any other part of their economy must yet have observed, even in spite of himself, the remarkable attachment which the inhabitants of a disturbed nest of ants manifest towards certain small white oblong bodies with which it is usually stored. He must have perceived that the ants are much less intently occupied with providing for their own safety, than in conveying off these little bodies to a place of security. To effect this purpose the whole

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A793.1 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 1. Text

resemble; but the result was constantly in favour of the sagacity of the ants. They invariably selected the eggs from whatever materials they were mixed with, and re-arranged them as beforec. New and more severe labours succeed the birth of the young grubs which are disclosed from the eggs after a few days. The working ants are now almost without remission engaged in supplying their wants and forwarding their growth. Every evening an hour before sunset they regularly remove the whole brood, as

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

the larv the neuters, unless these should prove to be the larv 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 larv , and the second those whose workers are neutersa. 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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

ject, 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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 seaa. These ants were winged whence this immense column came was not ascertained. From the numbers here agglomerated, one would think that all the anthills of the counties of Kent and Surrey could scarcely have

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 antenn , makes some of them comprehend what route they are to pursue to find it, sometimes ever accompanying them to the spot; these, in their turn, become the guides of others, till all know which way to direct their stepsa. It is well known also, that ants give each other information

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 man uvres, and with equal success; only in this case the movement of the antenn 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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

In this country it is commonly in March, earlier of 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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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 routeb. From Huber we further learn, that these roads of the hill-ants are sometimes a hundred feet in length, and

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

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

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

lar means. The fluid in this had a powerful odour of musk. The acid of ants has long been celebrated, and is one of their most powerful means of defence. When the species that have no sting make a wound with their jaws, they insinuate into it some of this acid, the effluvia produced by which are so subtile and penetrating, that it is impossible to hold your head near the nest of the hill-ant (Formica rufa, L.), when the ants are much disturbed, without being almost suffocated. This odour thus

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A793.2 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 2. Text

moment with an additional anecdote or two, especially with one respecting the former tribe, which is valuable from the celebrity of the relater. Dr. Franklin was of opinion that ants could communicate their ideas to each other; in proof of which he related to Kalm, the Swedish traveller, the foliowing fact. Having placed a pot containing treacle in a closet infested with ants, these insects found their way into it, and were feasting very heartily when he discovered them. He then shook them out