The hill ant (_Formica rufa_, L.). 2. The jet ant (_F. fuliginosa_,
Latr.). 3. The red ant (_Myrmica rubra_, Latr. _Formica_, Lin.): He
observes, that this species alone is armed with a sting; whereas, the
others make a wound with their mandibles, and inject the formic acid
into it. 4. The common yellow ant (_F. flava_, Latr.): and 5. The
small black ant (_F. fusca_, L.).
II. _Egg._ He observes that the eggs 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 larvæ 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 and neuters only a month.
V. _Imago._ He knew perfectly the sexes, and was aware that females
cast their wings previous to their becoming mothers; that, at the
time of their swarms, large numbers of both sexes become the prey of
birds and fishes: that the surviving females, sometimes in numbers,
go under ground, particularly in mole-hills, and lay eggs; but he had
not discovered that they then act the part of neuters in the care of
their progeny. He knew also, that when there was more than one queen
in a nest, the rivals lived in perfect harmony.
With respect to the neuters, he had witnessed the homage they pay their
queens or fertile females, continued even after their death;--this
homage, he however observes, which is noticed by no other author,
appears often to be temporary and local--ceasing at certain times,
and being renewed upon a change of residence. He enlarges upon their
exemplary care of the eggs, larvæ, and pupæ. He tells us that the eggs,
as soon as laid, are taken by the neuters and deposited in heaps, and
that the neuters brood them. He particularly notices their carrying
them, with the larvæ and pupæ, daily from the interior to the surface
of the nest and back again, according to the temperature; and that
they feed the larvæ by disgorging the food from their own stomach.
He speaks also of their opening the cocoons when the pupæ are ready
to assume the imago, and disengaging them from them. With regard
to their labours, he found that they work all night, except during
violent rains:--that their instinct varies as to the station of their
nest:--that their masonry is consolidated by no cement, but consists
merely of mould;--that they form roads and trackways to and from
their nests;--that they carry each other in sport, and sometimes lie
heaped one on another in the sun.--He suspects that they occasionally
emigrate;--he proves by a variety of experiments that they do not hoard
up provisions. He found they were often infested by a particular kind
of _Gordius_:--he had noticed also that the neuters of _F. rufa_ and
_flava_ (which escaped M. Huber, though he observed it in _Polyergus
rufescens_, Latr.) are of two sizes, which the writer of this note can
confirm by producing specimens:--and lastly, with Swammerdam, he had
recourse to artificial colonies, the better to enable him to examine
their proceedings, but not comparable to the ingenious apparatus of M.
Huber.
[52] Gould says that the males and females are nearly equal in
number, p. 62; but from Huber's observations it seems to follow that
the former are most numerous, p. 96.
[53] That the neuter ants, like those of the hive-bee, are imperfectly
organized females, appears from the following observation of M. Huber
(_Nouv. Observ. &c._ ii. 443.)--"Les fourmis nous ont encore offert
à cet égard une analogie très frappante; à la vérité, nous n'avons
jamais vu pondre les ouvrières, mais nous avons été témoins de leur
accouplement. Ce fait pourroit être attesté par plusieurs membres de la
Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Génève, à qui nous l'avons fait voir;
l'approche du mâle étoit toujours suivie de la mort de l'ouvrière;
leur conformation ne permet donc pas qu'elles deviennent mères, mais
l'instinct du mâle prouve du moins que ce sont des femelles."
[54] Gould, 103.
[55] M. Huber calls this an apterous female; yet he could not
discover that they laid eggs; and he owns that they more nearly
resembled the workers than the females; and that he should have
considered them as such, had he seen them mix with them in their
excursions. _Huber_, p. 251.
[56] De Geer ii. 1104.
[57] Gould, 99.
[58] Huber, 105.
[59] _Pilgrimage_, 1090.
[60] M. Huber observes that fecundated females, after they have lost
their wings, make themselves a subterranean cell, some singly, others
_in common_. From which it appears that some colonies have more than
one female, from their first establishment.
[61] ii. 1071.
[62] Gould, p. 24--.
[63] Compare Gould p. 25, with Huber 125, note (1).
[64] It may be thought that many of the anecdotes related in the
following history of the proceedings of neuter ants could not have
been observed by any one, unless he had been admitted into an
ant-hill; but it must be recollected that M. P. Huber, from whose
work the most extraordinary facts are copied, invented a kind of ant
hive; so constructed as to enable him to observe their proceedings
without disturbing them.
[65] Vol. I. 476.
[66] Gould, 92. De Geer ii. 1067. Huber, 5, 132.
[67] Huber, 133.
[68] Huber, 237, 217, 167.
[69] Ibid. 137.
[70] Bradley, 134.
[71] Gould, 85.
[72] _Hist. of Barbadoes_, p. 63.
[73] VOL. I. p. 122.
[74] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. p. 338, 342. Some,
however, still regard it as a distinct acid.
[75] p. 34.
[76] See Fourcroy, _Annales du Muséum_, no. 5. 343.
[77] Gould, 101.
[78] One would think the writer of the account of ants in Mouffet
had been witness to something similar. "If they see any one idle,"
says he, "they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from
the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut
off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their
children not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and
effeminacy."--_Theatr. Ins._ 241.
[79] Mouffet, _Theatr. Ins._ 242.
[80] Huber, 160.
[81] See Huber, chap. v.
[82] Huber, 287. Jurine, _Hyménoptères_, 273.
[83] 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 pupæ, he says, "_that they also carry the
aureliæ 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
ants. If you place a parcel before or near their colonies, they will,
with remarkable greediness, seize and carry them off." 91, note *.
Query--Do they this to devour them, or educate them? White made the
same observation, _Nat. Hist._ ii. 278.
[84] This species forms a kind of link which connects Latreille's two
genera _Formica_ and _Myrmica_, borrowing the abdominal squama from
the former, and the sting from the latter.
[85] Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have
met with fresh confirmation of the extraordinary history here related.
Having been induced to visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so
justly celebrated as one of the first entomologists of the age, and to
whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly attentions which he
paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he assured
me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. He
has also said the same in his _Considérations nouvelles et générales
sur les insectes vivant en Société_. (Mém. du Mus. iii. 407.) At the
same time he informed me that there was a nest of the rufescent ants
in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards was so good
as to accompany me. We went on the 25th of June, 1817. The day was
excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we
began our search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion.
In a minute or two, however, my friend directed my attention to one
individual--two or three more next appeared--and soon a numerous army
was to be seen winding through the long grass of a low ridge in which
was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the wood from Paris, on
the right-hand and near the road, is a bare place paled in for the
Sunday amusement of the lower orders--to this the ants directed their
march, and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed
it rapidly and with great apparent eagerness; all the while exploring
the ground with their antennæ as beagles with their noses, evidently
as if in pursuit of game. Those in the van, as Huber also observed,
kept perpetually falling back into the main body. When they had passed
this inclosure, they appeared for some time to be at a loss, making no
progress but only coursing about: but after a few minutes delay, as if
they had received some intelligence, they resumed their march and soon
arrived at a negro nest, which they entered by one or two apertures. We
could not observe that any negroes were expecting their attack outside
the nest, but in a short time a few came out at another opening, and
seemed to be making their escape. Perhaps some conflict might have
taken place within the nest, in the interval between the appearance of
these negroes and the entry of their assailants. However this might be,
in a few minutes one of the latter made its appearance with a pupa in
its mouth; it was followed by three or four more; and soon the whole
army began to emerge as fast as it could, almost every individual
carrying its burthen. Most that I observed seemed to have pupæ. I
then traced the expedition back to the spot from which I first saw
them set out, which according to my steps was about 156 feet from the
negro formicary. The whole business was transacted in little more than
an hour. Though I could trace the ants back to a certain spot in the
ridge before mentioned, where they first appeared in the long grass, I
did not succeed in finding the entrance to their nest, so that I was
deprived of the pleasure of seeing the mixed society. As we dined at an
_auberge_ close to the spot, I proposed renewing my researches after
dinner; but a violent tempest of thunder and rain, though I attempted
it, prevented my succeeding; and afterwards I had no opportunity of
revisiting the place.
M. Latreille very justly observes that it is physically impossible
for the _rufescent_ ants (_Polyergus rufescens_), on account of the
form of their jaws and the accessory parts of the mouth, either to
prepare habitations for their family, to procure food, or to feed
them.--_Considérations nouvelles, &c._ p. 408.
[86] VOL. I. 370.
[87] See Huber, chap, vii-xi.
[88] The ant ascends the tree, says Linné, _that it may milk its
cows, the Aphides_, not kill them. _Syst. Nat._ 962. 3.
[89] Huber, 195. I have more than once found these Aphides in the
nests of this species of ant.
[90] See Huber, chap. vi. I have found Aphides in the nest of _Myrmica
rubra_. Boisier de Sauvages speaks of ants keeping their own Aphides,
and gives an interesting account of them. _Journ. de Physique_, i. 195.
[91] Gould, 42.
[92] Walking one day early in July in a spot where I used to notice a
single nest of _Formica rufa_, I observed that a new colony had been
formed of considerable magnitude; and between it and the original
nest were six or seven smaller settlements.
[93] See Huber, chap. iv. § 3.
[94] Gould, 67. De Geer, ii. 1054.
[95] _Hist. Animal._ l. ix. c. 38.
[96] Gould, 68.
[97] Huber, 35, 42.
[98] Ibid. 23.
[99] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ lxi. c. 29.
[100] Gould, 87.
[101] De Geer, ii. 1067.
[102] Huber, 146.
[103] _Œuv. de_ Bonnet, i. 535. Huber, 197.
[104] VOL. I. 258.
[105] _Voy. to Maurit._ 71.
[106] I was much amused, when dining in the forest of Fontainebleau,
by the pertinacity with which the hill-ant (_F. rufa_) attacked our
food, haling from our very plates, while we were eating, long strips
of meat many times their own size.
[107] Related in the _Quarterly Review_ for August 1816, p. 259.
[108] _Insect. Surinam._ p. 18. In her plate the ants are represented
so connected.
[109] _Voyages dans l'Amérique Mérid._ i. 187.
[110] Gould, 69.
[111] Huber, 73.
[112] Gould, 103--.
[113] Bonnet, ii. 407.
[114] Huber, 170--.
LETTER XVIII.
_SOCIETIES OF INSECTS._
PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (_Wasps and Humble-Bees._)
I shall now call your attention to such parts of the history of
two other descriptions of social insects, _wasps_, namely, and
_humble-bees_, as have not been related to you in my letters on the
affection of insects for their young, and on their habitations. What
I have to communicate, though not devoid of interest, is not to be
compared with the preceding account of the ants, nor with that which
will follow of the hive-bee. This, however, may arise more from the
deficiency of observations than the barrenness of the subject.
The first of these animals, _wasps_, (_Vespa_)--with whose proceedings
I shall begin,--we are apt to regard in a very unfavourable light.
They are the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be
open at the season of the year in which they appear, they are sure
to enter. When they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make
free with every thing that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine,
are equally to their taste; and if we attempt to drive them away, and
are not very cautious, they will often make us sensible that they are
not to be provoked with impunity. Compared with the bees, they may
be considered as a horde of thieves and brigands; and the latter as
peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects, whose persons are attacked
and property plundered by them. Yet, with all this love of pillage
and other bad propensities, they are not altogether disagreeable or
unamiable; they are brisk and lively; they do not usually attack
unprovoked; and their object in plundering us is not purely selfish,
but is principally to provide for the support of the young brood of
their colonies.
The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other social
_Hymenoptera_, consist of females, males, and workers. The _females_
may be considered as of two sorts: first, the females by way of
eminence, much larger than any other individuals of the community,
equalling six of the workers (from which in other respects they do
not materially differ) in weight, and laying both male and female
eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the workers, and
laying only male eggs. This last description of females, which are
found also both amongst the humble-bees and hive-bees, were first
observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber's[115].
The large females are produced later than the workers, and make
their appearance in the following spring; and whoever destroys one
of them at that time, destroys an intire colony, of which she would
be the founder. They are more worthy of praise than the queen-bee;
since upon the latter, from her very first appearance in the perfect
state no labour devolves,--all her wants being prevented by a host of
workers, some of which are constantly attending upon her, feeding
her, and permitting her to suffer no fatigue; while others take
every step that is necessary for the safety and subsistence of the
colony. Not so our female wasp;--she is at first an insulated being
that has had the fortune to survive the rigours of winter. When in
the spring she lays the foundation of her future empire, she has not
a single worker at her disposal: with her own hands and teeth she
often hollows out a cave wherein she may lay the first foundations
of her paper metropolis; she must herself build the first houses,
and produce from her own womb their first inhabitants; which in
their infant state she must feed and educate, before they can assist
her in her great design. At length she receives the reward of her
perseverance and labour; and from being a solitary unconnected
individual, in the autumn is enabled to rival the queen of the hive
in the number of her children and subjects; and in the edifices which
they inhabit--the number of cells in a vespiary sometimes amounting
to more than 16,000, almost all of which contain either an egg, a
grub, or a pupa; and each cell serving for three generations in a
year; which, after making every allowance for failures and other
casualties, will give a population of at least 30,000. Even at this
time, when she has so numerous an army of coadjutors, the industry of
this creature does not cease, but she continues to set an example of
diligence to the rest of the community.--If by any accident, before
the other females are hatched, the queen mother perishes, the neuters
cease their labours, lose their instincts, and die.
The number of females in a populous vespiary is considerable, amounting
to several hundred; they emerge from the pupa about the latter end of
August, at the same time with the males, and fly in September and
October, when they pair. Of this large number of females, very few
survive the winter. Those that are so fortunate remain torpid till
the vernal sun recalls them to life and action. They then fly forth,
collect provision for their young brood, and are engaged in the other
labours necessary for laying the foundation of their empire: but in the
summer months they are never seen out of the nest.
The _male_ wasps are much smaller than the female, but they weigh as
much as two workers. Their antennæ are longer than those of either,
not, like theirs, thicker at the end, but perfectly filiform; and
their abdomen is distinguished by an additional segment. Their
numbers about equal those of the females, and they are produced at
the same time. They are not so wholly given to pleasure and idleness
as the drones of the hive. They do not, indeed, assist in building
the nest, and in the care of the young brood; but they are the
scavengers of the community; for they sweep the passages and streets,
and carry off all the filth. They also remove the bodies of the
dead, which are sometimes heavy burthens for them; in which case two
unite their strength to accomplish the work; or, if a partner be not
at hand, the wasp thus employed cuts off the head of the defunct,
and so effects its purpose. As they make themselves so useful, they
are not, like the male bees, devoted by the workers to an universal
massacre when the impregnation of the females, the great end of
their creation, is answered; but they share the general lot of the
community, and are suffered to survive till the cold cuts off them
and the workers together.
The _workers_ are the most numerous, and to us the only troublesome
part of the community; upon whom devolves the main business of the
nest. In the summer and autumnal months, they go forth by myriads into
the neighbouring country to collect provisions; and on their return to
the common den, after reserving a sufficiency for the nutriment of the
young brood, they divide the spoil with great impartiality;--part being
given to the females, part to the males, and part to those workers
that have been engaged in extending and fortifying the vespiary.
This division is voluntarily made, without the slightest symptom of
compulsion. Several wasps assemble round each of the returning workers,
and receive their respective portions. It is curious and interesting to
observe their motions upon this occasion. As soon as a wasp, that has
been filling itself with the juice of fruits, arrives at the nest, it
perches upon the top, and disgorging a drop of its saccharine fluid, is
attended sometimes by two at once, who share the treasure: this being
thus distributed, a second and sometimes a third drop is produced,
which falls to the lot of others.
Another principal employment of the workers is the enlarging and
repairing of the nest. It is extremely amusing to see them engaged
upon this foliaceous covering. They work with great celerity; and
though a large number are occupied at the same time, there is not the
least confusion. Each individual has its portion of work assigned to
it, extending from an inch to an inch and a half, and is furnished
with a ball of ligneous fibre, scraped or rather plucked by its
powerful jaws from posts, rails, and the like. This is carried in its
mouth, and is thus ready for immediate use:--but upon this subject
I have enlarged in a former letter[116]. The workers also clean the
cells and prepare them to receive another egg, after the imago is
disclosed and has left it.
There is good reason for thinking, and the opinion has the
sanction of Sir Joseph Banks, that wasps have sentinels placed
at the entrances of their nests, which if you can once seize and
destroy, the remainder will not attack you. This is confirmed by an
observation of Mr. Knight's in the _Philosophical Transactions_[117],
that if a nest of wasps be approached without alarming the
inhabitants, and all communication be suddenly cut off between those
out of the nest and those within it, no provocation will induce the
former to defend it and themselves. But if one escapes from within,
it comes with a very different temper, and appears commissioned to
avenge public wrongs, and prepared to sacrifice its life in the
execution of its orders. He discovered this when quite a boy.
It sometimes happens, that when a large number of female wasps have
been observed in the spring, and an abundance of workers has in
consequence been expected to make their attack upon us in the summer
and autumn, but few have appeared. Mr. Knight observed this in 1806,
and supposes it to be caused by a failure of males[118]. I have since
more than once made the same observation, and Major Moor, as well
as myself, noticed in the year 1815. What took place here in the
following year may in some degree account for it. Though the summer
had been very wet, and one may almost say winterly, there were in
the neighbourhood in which I reside abundance of wasps at the usual
time; but, except on some few warm days, in which they were very
active, benumbed by the cold they were crawling about upon the floors
of my house and seemed unable to fly. In this vicinity numbers make
their nests in the banks of the river. In the beginning of the month
of October there was a very considerable inundation, after which not
a single wasp was to be seen. The continued wet that produces an
inundation may also destroy those nests that are out of the reach
of the waters;--and perhaps this cause may have operated in those
years above alluded to, in which the appearance of the workers in
the summer and autumn did not correspond with the large numbers of
females observed in the spring.
In ordinary seasons, in the month lately mentioned, October, wasps
seem to become less savage and sanguinary; for even flies, of which
earlier in the summer they are the pitiless destroyers, may be seen
to enter their nests with impunity. It is then, probably, that they
begin to be first affected by the approach of the cold season, when
nature teaches them it is useless longer to attend to their young.
They themselves all perish, except a few of the females, upon the
first attack of frost.
Reaumur, from whom (see the sixth Memoir of his last volume) most
of these observations are taken, put the nests of wasps under glass
hives, and succeeded so effectually in reconciling these little
restless creatures to them, that they carried on their various works
under his eye: and if you feel disposed to follow his example, I
have no doubt you will throw light upon many parts of their history,
concerning which we are now in darkness.
* * * * *
Having given you some idea, imperfect indeed from the want of
materials, of the societies of wasps, I must next draw up for you the
best account I can of those of the _humble-bees_[119]. These form
a kind of intermediate link between the wasps and the hive-bees,
collecting honey indeed and making wax, but constructing their
combs and cells without the geometric precision of the latter, and
of a more rude and rustic kind of architecture; and distinguished
from both, though they approach nearer to the bees, by the extreme
hairiness of their bodies.