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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
Amongst the devourers of insects in their perfect state only, must be ranked a few of the social tribes, ants, wasps, and hornets. The first-mentioned indefatigable and industrious creatures kill and carry off great numbers of insects of every description to their nests, and prodigious are their efforts in this work. I have seen an ant dragging a wild bee many times bigger than itself; and there was brought to me this very morning while writing this letter, an Elater quite alive and active
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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
; and even of some Tenthredinid , which, however, have each a separate silken covering. But as it would be tedious to describe these particularly, I pass on to the habitations formed by insects in their perfect state, which have in view the education of their young as well as self-preservation, describing in succession those of ants, bees, wasps, and Termites. Of these the most simple in their structure are the nests of different kinds of ants, many of which externally presen the appearance 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
nial warmth. It is wholly composed of numerous small apartments of different sizes, communicating with each other by means of galleries and arranged in separate stories, some very deep in the earth, others a considerable height above it; the former for the reception of the young in cold weather and at night, the latter adapted to their use in the day time. In forming these, the ants mix the earth excavated from the bottom of the nest with the other materials of which the mount consists, 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
, 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 behindc. But that locusts have leaders, like the bees or ants, distinguished from 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
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
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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
. Large workers were also noticed by M. P. Huber in the nests of F. rufescensb, 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
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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
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 reinforcementsb. 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
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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 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
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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
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
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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
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
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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
For the ants employ each moment, by day and night almost without intermission, unless hindered by excessive rainsa. M. Huber also, speaking of a masonant, not found with us, tells us that they work after sun-set, and in the nightb. 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
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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
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 exercisec. 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 legsd. But the most circumstantial account of
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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
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
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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
this tropical crevice, first to have been struck with the thought of what a prodigious saving of labour and anxiety would occur to her compatriots by establishing their society here; that she had communicated her ideas to them; and that they had resolved upon an emigration to this new-discovered country this Madeira of ants whose genial clime presented advantages which no other situation could offer. Neither instinct, nor any conceivable modification of instinct, could have taught the ants to
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A793.4
Beagle Library:
Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 4.
Text
that it is scarcely possible to endure it at a short distance. It also transpires from them, for they leave traces of it on the bodies which they traverse: and hence, according to the experiments of Mr. Coleridge, the vulgar notion that ants cannot pass over a line of chalk is correct; the effervescence produced by the contact of the acid and alkaline being so considerable, as in some degree to burn their legsc. The circumstance of much of the food of ants being of a saccharine nature may account
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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
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
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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
producing males and females are laid the earliest, and are the largest: he seems, however, to have confounded the black and brown eggs of Aphides with those of ants. III. Larva. These, when first hatched, he observes, are hairy, and continue in the larva state twelve months or more. He, as well as De Geer, was aware that the larv of Myrmica rubra do not, as other ants do, spin a cocoon when they assume the pupa. IV. Pupa. He found that female ants continue in this state about six weeks, and males
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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
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 larv and pup , the neuters or workers combining in
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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
Transactions, who had such a horror of them, that during the season in which they abound in houses, she always confined herself to her apartment. Ants are insects of this order, which, though our indigenous species may be regarded as harmless, in some countries are gifted with double means of annoyance, both from their sting and their bite. A green kind in New South Wales was observed by Sir Joseph Banks to inflict a wound scarcely less painful than the sting of a beea. Another, from the
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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
metropolis in 1782, when rewards were offered for collecting the caterpillars, and the churchwardens and overseers of the parishes attended to see them burnt by bushels. You may have observed perhaps in some cabinets of foreign insects an ant, the head which is very large in proportion to the size of its body, with a piece of leaf in its mouth many times bigger than itself. These ants, called in Tobago parasol ants (Formica cephalotes, L.), cut circular pieces out of the leaves of various trees
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