No. XL. CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS ON THE WONDERFUL INGENUITY OF CERTAIN INSECTS. Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum. For God the whole created mass inspires. VIRGIL. DRYDEN. THE association and economy of ants, merit no less attention than those of bees and wasps. With wonderful industry and activity they collect materials for the construction of their nest. They unite in numbers, and assist each other in excavating the earth, and in transporting to their habitation bits of straw, small pieces of wood, and other substances of a similar kind, which they employ in lining and supporting their subterraneous galleries. The form of their nest or hill is somewhat conical, and, of course, the water, when it rains, runs easily off, without penetrating their abode. Under this hill there are many galleries or passages which communicate with each other, and resemble the streets of a small city. Ants not only associate for the purpose of constructing a common habitation, but for cherishing and protecting their offspring. Every person must have often observed, when part of a nest is suddenly exposed, their extreme solicitude for the preservation of their chrysales, or nymphs, which often exceed the size of the animals themselves. With amazing dexterity and quickness the ants transport their nymphs into the subterraneous galleries of the nest, and place them beyond the reach of any common danger. The courage and fortitude with which they defend their young is no less astonishing. The body of an ant was cut through the middle, and, after suffering this cruel treatment, so strong was its parental affection, with its head, and one half of the body, it carried off eight or ten nymphs. They go to great distances in search of provisions. Their roads, which are often winding and involved, all terminate in the nest. The wisdom and foresight of ants have been celebrated from the remotest antiquity. It has been asserted and believed, for near three thousand years, that they lay up magazines of provisions for the winter, and that they even cut off the germ of the grain to prevent it from shooting. But the ancients were never famed for accurate researches into the nature and operations of insects. Collections of larvæ were long mistaken for magazines of corn and other food, which it was supposed the ants deposited in granaries for winter consumption. But the truth is, ants are almost wholly carnivorous; they do not feed on corn; they are total strangers to hoarding, and none of their cells are constructed for that purpose. The food which ants appear to relish more than all others, is an exudation from the bodies of several species of aphis, insects which abound on the plants in the vicinity of ant-hills. This species of honey is absorbed with great avidity by the ants, and apparently without the least detriment to the insect that yields it. M. Huber informs us that the liquor is voluntarily given out by the aphis, when solicited so to do by the ant, which, for that purpose, strikes it gently, but repeatedly, with its antennæ, using the same motions as it does when caressing its young. A single aphis is sufficient to supply, in this way, many ants with a plentiful meal. Most insects become torpid when their temperature approaches the freezing point. Ants present a remarkable exception to this rule; for they are not benumbed till the thermometer has descended five degrees of Fahrenheit below the freezing point. They, therefore, have need of a supply of provisions during the greatest part of the winter, although they then require less than in summer. Their principal resource, however, continues still the same, namely, the honey of the aphis. And it is remarkable that the aphis becomes torpid at precisely the same temperature as the ant; a coincidence which tends to confirm the opinion that the natural secretion of which we have been speaking was intended for the subsistence of ants. Ants present us with several striking analogies to bees. In each of them we distinguish three modifications of sex, the males, the females, and the imperfects, or labourers. The latter are, with respect to sex, in the same condition as the working bees; that is, they are females in which the distinctive organs are not developed, and which are, therefore, barren. In each hive of bees, however, there is but one queen permanently; whereas a great number of queens, or female ants, are met with, living in the utmost harmony, in the same nest. The different species of ants are distinguished from each other by great diversities of manners. This is especially manifested in the construction of their habitations. Some employ merely earth as the material; others fragments of leaves, of bark, or of straw; others nothing but pulverized portions of decayed wood. The brown ant exhibits the most perfect specimens. Their nests are formed of раrallel, or concentric stories, each four or five lines in height; the partitions being about half a line in thickness, and having their interior perfectly smooth. Each of these stories contains chambers of different sizes, having long galleries of communication. The ceilings of the larger species are supported by small pillars, sometimes by slender walls, at others by arches. The smaller cells, and the larger ones, or halls, with passages of communication, are most skilfully distributed, many of the latter converging towards one larger area, like streets towards a market place. The whole nest frequently contains twenty of these stories, in which the workmanship and arrangement of every part, are calculated to excite our admiration 1. Beside the associating insects, whose operations I have described, there are several species of bees distinguished by the appellation of solitary, because they do not associate to carry on any joint operations. Of this kind is the mason-bee, so called because it builds a habitation composed of sand and mortar. The nests of this bee are fixed to the walls of houses, and, when finished, have the appearance of irregular prominences arising from dirt or clay accidentally thrown against a wall or stone by the feet of horses. These prominences are not so remarkable as to attract attention; but, when the ex ternal coat is removed, their structure is discovered to be truly admirable. The interior part consists of an assemblage of different cells, each of which affords a convenient lodgement to a white worm, very similar to those produced by the honey-bee. Here they remain till they have undergone all their metamorphoses. In constructing this nest, which is a work of great labour and dexterity, the female is the sole operator. She receives no assistance from the male. The manner in which the female mason-bees build 1 For much curious information relative to the manners and habits of ants, see M. Huber's Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis Indigènes, Paris 1810, and avery able Analysis of this work in the Edinb. Rev. vol. xx, p. 143. their nests is the most curious branch of their his tory. After choosing a part of a wall on which she is resolved to fix a habitation for her future progeny, she goes in in quest of proper materials. proper materials. The nest to be constructed must consist of a species of mortar of which sand is the basis. She knows, like human builders, that every kind of sand is not equally proper for making good mortar; she goes, therefore, to a bed of sand, and selects, grain by grain, the kind which is best to answer her purpose. With her teeth, which are as large and as strong as those of the honey-bee, she examines and brings together several grains. But sand alone will not make mortar; recourse must be had to a cement similar to the slaked lime employed by masons. Our bee is unacquainted with lime, but she possesses an equivalent in her own body. From her mouth she throws out a viscid liquor, with which she moistens the first grain pitched upon; to this grain she cements a second, which she moistens in the same manner, and to the former two she attaches a third, and so on, till she has formed a mass as large as the shot usually employed to kill hares. This mass she carries off in her teeth to the place she had chosen for erecting her nest, and makes it the foundation of the first cell. In this manner she labours incessantly till all the cells are completed, a work which is generally accomplished in five or six days. All the cells are similar, and nearly equal in dimensions. Before they are covered their figure resembles that of a thimble. She never begins to make a second till the first be finished. Each cell is about an inch high, and nearly half an inch in diameter. But the labour of building is not the only one this female bee has to undergo. When a cell has been raised to two-thirds of its height, another occupa |