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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

nions 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

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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

ponents, 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. neas Sylvius, after giving a very circumstantial account of one contested

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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

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 (F. c spitum, L.) upon these occasions carry their recruits

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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

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 citya. 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

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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

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

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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

occasionally some Aphodii and Staphylinid : and the societies of ants, as well as their attendant Aphides, are in motion and take more or less food during the whole of that season when the cold is not intense. The younger Huber informs us that ants become torpid only at 2 Reaum. below freezing (27 Fahrenheit), and apparently endeavour to preserve themselves from the cold, when its approach is gradual, by clustering together. When the temperature is above this point they follow their ordinary

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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

by an admirable provision, become lethargic at precisely the same degree of cold as the ants, and awake at the same period with thema. Lastly, there are some few insects which do not seem ever to be torpid, as Podura nivalis, L., and the singular apterous insect recently described by Dalman, Chionea araneo desb, both of which run with agility on the snow itself; and the common hive-bee; though with regard to the precise state in which this last passes the winter, this part of its economy has

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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

quondam amateur of poultry-breeding. Now societies of ants have more than once exhibited a deviation from their usual instinct, which to me seems quite as extraordinary and as indicative of reason as would be that supposed in a hen. A certain degree of warmth is required for the exclusion and rearing of their eggs, larv and pup ; and in their ordinary abodes, as you have been already toldb, they undergo great daily labour in removing their charge to different parts of the nest, as its temperature is

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A793.3 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 3. Text

very extensively. It is stated, however, by Reaumura, that the reverse of this takes place in the eggs of the hive-bee, those that are to produce males being larger than the rest. Another peculiarity connected with the present head is the augmentation in bulk which takes place, after exclusion, in the eggs of the great tribe of saw-flies (Tenthredo L.), the gall-flies (Cynips L.), the ants (Formica L.) and the water-mites (Hydrachna Ma ll. Atax F.). Those of the two former, which are usually

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A793.3 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 3. Text

ous heads, like other larv change their skins several times previously to becoming pup a. The grubs, also, of bees, wasps, ants? and probably many other Hymenoptera, do not change their skin till they assume the pupa, nor the larva of the female Coccusb. If you feel disposed to investigate the reasons of that law of the Creator which has ordained that the skins of the higher animals shall be daily, and imperceptibly, and as it were piece by piece renewed, while those of insects are cast

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A793.3 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 3. Text

forms in this respect to which mere sexuality gives rise amongst insects. In the eyes, or stemmata, this diversity is less remarkable. Latreille has described two ants, Formica contracta and coeca, in the neuter of which he could discover no eyesb: in the former, the female, however, had large ones. The male he appears not to have known, but it probably was not destitute of these organs; of the latter he was acquainted only with the workers. The neuter of Myrmica rubra, another ant, has no ocelli

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A793.3 Beagle Library: Kirby, William and Spence, William. 1815-26. An introduction to entomology. 4 vols. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. vol. 3. Text

female ants, c. is very elevated, forming an arch, and sloping towards the abdomen. In general it may be observed with respect to the remaining Orders, that the form of the trunk merges in that of the whole body, the tendency of which is often to a three-sided figure. III. Proportions. The trunk is usually longer and larger than the head and longer than the abdomen, but not wider: but there are exceptions to both these rules. In Colliuris, Mantis, c., it is more slender; and in Atta

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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

seen them of the length of two feetc; but they vary considerably in this respect. In ants, in which Gould detected them, he states their length to be not more than half an inchd. In caterpillars, which they sometimes infest, they are longer; in that of Bombyx Ziczac, De Geer found one three inches and a half longe; and R sel three, of six inches, in that of Sphinx Euphorbi f; and in Phalangium cornutum, according to Latreille, they extend to more than seven inchesg. In the larva of a Phryganea L

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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

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 accidenta. 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

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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

fine, and the thermometer must stand at above 36 in the shade. Previously to marching there is reason to think that a It is not clear that our Willughby had not some knowledge of this extraordinary fact; for in his description of ants, speaking of their care of their pup , he says, that they also carry the aureli of others into their nests, as if they were their own. Rai. Hist. Ins. 69. Gould remarks concerning the hill-ant, This species is very rapacious after the vermicles and nymphs of other

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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

are not essential to a work of this nature) will be published, must depend upon the judgement of the public as to the value of that portion now submitted to them. The contents of the remaining volumes will be nearly as follows. Societies of Insects, including the History of Ants, Wasps, Bees, c. Motions of insects. Noises of insects. Means of defence from their enemies. Luminous insects. Hybernation of insects. Instinct of insects. Definition of the term Insect. States of insects Egg; Larva