_Polyergus rufescens_ and _Formica sanguinea_: but they do not, like
the African kings, make slaves of adults, their sole object being
to carry off the helpless infants of the colony which they attack,
the larvæ and pupæ; these they educate in their own nests, till they
arrive at their perfect state, when they undertake all the business
of the society[83]. In the following account I shall chiefly confine
myself to what Huber relates of the first of these species, and
conclude my extracts with his history of an expedition of the latter
to procure slaves.
The rufescent ants[84] do not leave their nests to go upon these
expeditions, which last about ten weeks, till the males are ready to
emerge into the perfect state: and it is very remarkable, that if
any individuals attempt to stray abroad earlier, they are detained
by their slaves, who will not suffer them to proceed. A wonderful
provision of the Creator to prevent the black colonies from being
pillaged when they contain only male and female brood, which would
be their total destruction, without being any benefit to their
assailants, to whom neuters alone are useful.
Their time of sallying forth is from two in the afternoon till five,
but more generally a little before five: the weather, however, must
be fine, and the thermometer must stand at above 36° in the shade.
Previously to marching there is reason to think that they send out
scouts to explore the vicinity; upon whose return they emerge from
their subterranean city, directing their course to the quarter from
which the scouts came. They have various preparatory signals, such
as pushing each other with the mandibles or forehead, or playing
with the antennæ, the object of which is probably to excite their
martial ardour, to give the word for marching, or to indicate the
route they are to take. The advanced guard usually consists of eight
or ten ants; but no sooner do these get beyond the rest, than they
move back, wheeling round in a semicircle, and mixing with the main
body, while others succeed to their station. They have "_no captain_,
_overseer_, _or ruler_," as Solomon observes, their army being
composed entirely of neuters, without a single female: thus all in
their turns take their place at the head, and then retreating towards
the rear, make room for others. This is the usual order of their
march; and the object of it may be to communicate intelligence more
readily from one part of the column to another.
When winding through the grass of a meadow they have proceeded to
thirty feet or more from their own habitation, they disperse; and,
like dogs with their noses, explore the ground with their antennæ
to detect the traces of the game they are pursuing. The negro
formicary, the object of their search, is soon discovered; some of
the inhabitants are usually keeping guard at the avenues, which
dart upon the foremost of their assailants with inconceivable fury.
The alarm increasing, crowds of its swarthy inhabitants rush forth
from every apartment; but their valour is exerted in vain; for the
besiegers, precipitating themselves upon them, by the ardour of their
attack compel them to retreat within, and seek shelter in the lowest
story; great numbers entering with them at the gates, while others
with their mandibles make a breach in the walls, through which the
victorious army marches into the besieged city. In a few minutes, by
the same passages, they as hastily evacuate it, each carrying off in
its mouth a larva or pupa which it has seized in spite of its unhappy
guardians. On their return home with their spoil, they pursue exactly
the route by which they went to the attack. Their success on these
expeditions is rather the result of their impetuosity, by which they
damp the courage of the negroes, than of their superior strength,
though they are a larger animal; for sometimes a very small body of
them, not more than 150, has been known to succeed in their attack
and to carry off their booty[85].
When from their proximity they are more readily to be come at than
those of the negroes, they sometimes assault with the same view the
nest of another species of ant, which I shall call the miners (_F.
cunicularia_). This species being more courageous than the other, on
this account the rufescent host marches to the attack in closer order
than usual, moving with astonishing rapidity. As soon as they begin
to enter their habitation, myriads of the miners rushing out fall
upon them with great fury; while others, well aware of their purpose,
making a passage through the midst of them, carry off in their mouth
the larvæ and pupæ. The surface of the nest thus becomes the scene
of an obstinate conflict, and the assailants are often deprived of
the prey which they had seized. The miners dart upon them, fight them
foot to foot, dispute every inch of their territory, and defend their
progeny with unexampled courage and rage. When the rufescents, laden
with pillage, retire, they do it in close order--a precaution highly
necessary, since their valiant enemies, pursuing them, impede their
progress for a considerable distance from their residence.
During these combats the pillaged ant-hill presents in miniature the
spectacle of a besieged city; hundreds of its inhabitants may be seen
making their escape, and carrying off in different directions, to a
place of security, some the young brood, and others their females
that are newly excluded: but when the danger is wholly passed, they
bring them back to their city, the gates of which they barricade, and
remain in great numbers near them to guard the entrance.
_Formica sanguinea_, as I observed above, is another of the
slave-making ants; and its proceedings merit separate notice, since
they differ considerably from those of the rufescents. They construct
their nests 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 arriving to reinforce them, which emboldened
them to approach nearer to the city they had blockaded; upon this
their anxiety to send couriers to their own nest seemed to increase:
these spreading a general alarm, a large reinforcement immediately
set out to join the besieging army; yet even then they did not begin
the battle. Almost all the negroes, coming out of their fortress,
formed themselves in a body about two feet square in front of it, and
there expected the enemy. Frequent skirmishes were the prelude to the
main conflict, which was begun by the negroes. Long before success
appeared dubious they carried off their pupæ, and heaped them up at
the entrance to their nest, on the side opposite to that on which the
enemy approached. The young females also fled to the same quarter.
The sanguine ants at length rush upon the negroes, and attacking them
on all sides, after a stout resistance the latter, renouncing all
defence, endeavour to make off to a distance with the pupæ they have
heaped up:--the host of assailants pursues, and strives to force from
them these objects of their care. Many also enter the formicary, and
begin to carry off the young brood that are left in it. A continued
chain of ants engaged in this employment extends from nest to nest,
and the day and part of the night pass before all is finished. A
garrison being left in the captured city, on the following morning
the business of transporting the brood is renewed. It often happens
(for this species of ant loves to change its habitation) that the
conquerors emigrate with all their family to the acquisition which
their valour has gained. All the incursions of _F. sanguinea_ take
place in the space of a month, and they make only five or six in the
year. They will sometimes travel 150 paces to attack a negro colony.
After reading this account of expeditions undertaken by ants for
so extraordinary a purpose, you will be curious to know how the
slaves are treated in the nests of these marauders--whether they
live happily, or labour under an oppressive yoke. You must recollect
that they are not carried off, like our negroes, at an age when the
_amor patriæ_ and all the charities of life which bind them to their
country, kindred and friends, are in their full strength, but in
what may be called the helpless days of infancy, or in their state
of repose, before they can have formed any associations or imbibed
any notions that render one place and society more dear to them than
another. Preconceived ideas, therefore, do not exist to influence
their happiness, which must altogether depend upon the treatment
which they experience at the hands of their new masters. Here the
goodness of Providence is conspicuous; which, although it has gifted
these creatures with an instinct so extraordinary, and seemingly so
unnatural, has not made it a source of misery to the objects of it.
You will here, perhaps, imagine that I have not sufficiently taken
into consideration the anxiety and privations undergone by the poor
neuters, in beholding those foster-children, for which they have all
along manifested such tender solicitude, thus violently snatched
from them: but when you reflect that they are the common property
of the whole colony, and that, consequently, there can scarcely be
any separate attachment to particular individuals, you will admit
that, after the fright and horror of the conflict are over, and
their enemies have retreated, they are not likely to experience
the poignant affliction felt by parents when deprived of their
children; especially when you further consider, that most probably
some of their brood are rescued from the general pillage; or at any
rate their females are left uninjured, to restore the diminished
population of their colonies, and to supply them with those objects
of attention, the larvæ, &c. so necessary to that development of
their instincts in which consists their happiness.
But to return to the point from which I digressed.--The negro and
miner ants suffer no diminution of happiness, and are exposed
to no unusual hardships and oppression in consequence of being
transplanted into a foreign nest. Their life is passed in much the
same employments as would have occupied it in their native residence.
They build or repair the common dwelling; they make excursions to
collect food; they attend upon the females; they feed them and the
larvæ; and they pay the necessary attention to the daily sunning of
the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ. Besides this, they have also to feed their
masters and to carry them about the nest. This you will say is a
serious addition to the ordinary occupations of their own colonies:
but when you consider the greater division of labour in these mixed
societies, which sometimes unite both negroes and miners in the same
dwelling, so that three distinct races live together, from their vast
numbers so far exceeding those of the native nest, you will not think
this too severe employment for so industrious an animal.
But you will here ask, perhaps--"Do the masters take no part in these
domestic employments? At least, surely, they direct their slaves, and
see that they keep to their work?"--No such thing, I assure you--the
sole motive for their predatory excursions seems to be mere laziness
and hatred of labour. Active and intrepid as they are in the field,
at all other times they are the most helpless animals that can be
imagined;--unwilling to feed themselves, or even to walk, their
indolence exceeds that of the sloth itself. So entirely dependent,
indeed, are they upon their negroes for every thing, that upon some
occasions the latter seem to be the masters, and exercise a kind of
authority over them. They will not suffer them, for instance, to
go out before the proper season, or alone; and if they return from
their excursions without their usual booty, they give them a very
indifferent reception, showing their displeasure, which however soon
ceases, by attacking them; and when they attempt to enter the nest,
dragging them out. To ascertain what they would do when obliged to
trust to their own exertions, Huber shut up thirty of the rufescent
ants in a glazed box, supplying them with larvæ and pupæ of their
own kind, with the addition of several negro pupæ, excluding very
carefully all their slaves, and placing some honey in a corner of
their prison. Incredible as it may seem, they made no attempt to
feed themselves: and though at first they paid some attention to
their larvæ, carrying them here and there, as if too great a charge
they soon laid them down again; most of them died of hunger in less
than two days; and the few that remained alive appeared extremely
weak and languid. At length, commiserating their condition, he
admitted a single negro; and this little active creature by itself
re-established order--made a cell in the earth; collected the larvæ
and placed them in it; assisted the pupæ that were ready to be
developed; and preserved the life of the neuter rufescents that still
survived. What a picture of beneficent industry, contrasted with the
baleful effects of sloth, does this interesting anecdote afford!
Another experiment which he tried made the contrast equally striking.
He put a large portion of one of these mixed colonies into a woollen
bag, in the mouth of which he fixed a small tube of wood, glazed at
the top, which at the other end was fitted to the entrance of a kind
of hive. The second day the tube was crowded with negroes going and
returning:--the indefatigable diligence and activity manifested by
them in transporting the young brood and their rufescent masters,
whose bodies were suspended upon their mandibles, was astonishing.
These last took no active part in the busy scene, while their slaves
showed the greatest anxiety about them, generally carrying them into
the hive; and if they sometimes contented themselves with depositing
them at the entrance of the tube, it was that they might use greater
dispatch in fetching the rest. The rufescent when thus set down
remained for a moment coiled up without motion, and then leisurely
unrolling itself, looked all around, as if it was quite at a loss
what direction to take;--it next went up to the negroes, and by the
play of its antennæ seemed to implore their succour, till one of them
attending to it conducted it into the hive.
Beings so entirely dependent, as these masters are upon their slaves,
for every necessary, comfort and enjoyment of their life, can
scarcely be supposed to treat them with rigour or unkindness:--so far
from this, it is evident from the preceding details, that they rather
look up to them, and are in some degree under their control.
The above observations, with respect to the indolence of our
slave-dealers, relate principally to the _rufescent_ species; for
the _sanguine_ ants are not altogether so listless and helpless;
they assist their negroes in the construction of their nests, they
collect their sweet fluid from the Aphides; and one of their most
usual occupations is to lie in wait for a small species of ant, on
which they feed; and when their nest is menaced by an enemy, they
show their value for these faithful servants by carrying them down
into the lowest apartments, as to a place of the greatest security.
Sometimes even the rufescents rouse themselves from the torpor that
usually benumbs them. In one instance, when they wished to emigrate
from their own to a deserted nest, they reversed what usually takes
place on such occasions, and carried all their negroes themselves
to the spot they had chosen. At the first foundation also of their
societies by impregnated females, there is good reason for thinking,
that, like those of other species[86], they take upon themselves
the whole charge of the nascent colony. I must not here omit a most
extraordinary anecdote related by M. Huber. He put into one of his
artificial formicaries pupæ of both species of the slave-collecting
ants, which, under the care of some negroes introduced with them,
arrived at their imago state, and lived together under the same roof
in the most perfect amity.
These facts show what effects education will produce even upon
insects; that it will impart to them a new bias, and modify in
some respects their usual instincts, rendering them familiar with
objects which, had they been educated at home, they would have
feared, and causing them to love those whom in that case they would
have abhorred.--It occasions, however, no further change in their
character, since the master and slave, brought up with the same care
and under the same superintendence, are associated in the mixed
formicary under laws entirely opposite[87].
Unparalleled and unique in the animal 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 long been celebrated; and that there is a connexion
between them you may at any time, in the proper season, convince
yourself; for you will always find the former very busy on those
trees and plants on which the latter abound: and if you examine more
closely, you will discover that their object in thus attending upon
them is to obtain the saccharine fluid, which may well be denominated
their milk[88], that they secrete.
This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, issues
in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not only by the
ordinary 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 seize and suck it down immediately.
This, however, is the least of their talents; for they absolutely
possess the art of making them yield it at their pleasure; or, in
other words, of milking them. On this occasion their antennæ are
their fingers; with these they pat the abdomen of the aphis on each
side alternately, moving them very briskly; a little drop of fluid
immediately appears, which the ant takes into its mouth, one species
(_Myrmica rubra_) conducting it with its antennæ, which are somewhat
swelled at the end. 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 manœuvres, and with
equal success; only in this case the movement of the antennæ 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, for the possession
of which they contend with great earnestness, and use every means to
keep them to themselves. Sometimes they seem to claim a right to the
aphides that inhabit the branches of a tree or the stalks of a plant;
and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with them, they
endeavour to drive them away, and may be seen running about in a
great bustle, and exhibiting every symptom of inquietude and anger.
Sometimes, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their aphides in
their mouth, they generally keep guard round them, and when the branch
is conveniently situated, they have recourse to an expedient still more
effectual to keep off interlopers,--they inclose it in a tube of earth
or other materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock near
their nest, and often communicating with it.
The greatest cow-keeper of all the ants, is one to be met with in most
of our pastures, residing in hemispherical formicaries, which are
sometimes of considerable diameter. I mean the yellow ant of Gould (_F.
flava_). This species, which is not fond of roaming from home, and
likes to have all its conveniences within reach, usually collects in
its nest a large herd of a kind of Aphis, that derives its nutriment
from the roots of grass and other plants (_Aphis radicum_); these
it transports from the neighbouring roots, probably by subterranean
galleries, excavated for the purpose, leading from the nest in all
directions[89]; and thus, without going out, it has always at hand a
copious supply of food. These creatures share its care and solicitude
equally with its own 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 these interesting objects down into
the interior of the nest. It is of great consequence to them to forward
the hatching of these eggs as much as possible, in order to ensure an
early source of food for their colony; and they had doubtless in this
instance brought them up to the warmest part of their dwelling with
this view. M. Huber, in a nest of the same ant, at the foot of an oak,
once found the eggs of _Aphis Quercûs_.
Our yellow ants are equally careful of their Aphides after they
are hatched, when their nest is disturbed conveying them into
the interior, fighting fiercely for them if the inhabitants of
neighbouring formicaries, as is sometimes the case, attempt to make
them their prey; and carrying them about in their mouths to change
their pasture, or for some other purpose. When you consider that from
them they receive almost the whole nutriment both of themselves and
larvæ, you will not wonder at their anxiety about them, since the
wealth and prosperity of the community is in proportion to the number
of their cattle. Several other species keep Aphides in their nests,
but none in such numbers as those of which I am speaking[90].