means roomy enough to admit the larger frame of the cock-roach: the insect, however, went in, and applied its utmost force to drag its prey in after. But these efforts were too often quite unsuccessful. The remedy adopted in this dilemma would not have disgraced a reasonable creature. It quietly lopped off the wings and legs of the cock-roach, and thus diminished the bulk of the animal, without depriving the young worm of any part of the food destined for its support. Those solitary wasps effect everything by main force; they seldom or never resort to stratagem, but boldly, and with the most impetuous courage, pounce at once upon their prey. Sometimes they light upon certain species of spiders which fabricate no web, but hunt about fields in pursuit of game. In the hope of catching some unwary fly, the treacherous spider counterfeits death; when the wasp darts on it with a blow, and rising into the air, amputates all the limbs of its victim.

There is one species of these insects which carry on an exterminating warfare against the honey and the solitary bees. As soon as one of these bee-. devouring wasps has prepared in the sand a little hole destined to become a habitation for its own young, and a grave for the bee, it makes towards those flowers to which its prey resort: the moment one of these little creatures has been perceived by the wasp, it darts on its victim with the rapidity of lightning, and with one blow of its sting puts an end to its industrious and useful career.

As each female, says Latreille, lays five or six eggs, it follows that she destroys as many bees. In a space one hundred and twenty feet long, he counted fifty

or sixty females preparing their nests; consequently they would kill three hundred bees. Now supposing a surface of ground of two square leagues infested in fifty places by a small number of these apivorous females, they would destroy within this range fifteen thousand bees.

Reaumur says, that in the woods and plains of the Isle of France no hive-bees are to be found-while they abound and yield much honey in the Isle of Bourbon; and the absence of this useful insect is perhaps justly attributed to the great number of wasps which infest the former island.

CHAPTER VII.

ANTS.

Their Industry-Affection for their Young-Courage-Their Anger-Unite in myriads for War and Extermination— The Fallow Ants-The Sanguine Ants-The Legionary Ants-Attack other Ants, and reduce them to Slavery. THE history of the insects now to be described, presents examples of an industry which has become proverbial, and traits of affection and feeling which would do honour to our own species. Love and courage, patience and perseverance, almost all the higher virtues of human nature, when arrived at the highest pitch of earthly perfection, seem to be the ordinary springs of action in the ant.

Of ants, as of other social insects, the largest portion of the community consists of neuters; beings possessing the most exquisite sentiments of maternity unalloyed by passion; so that from their birth to their death they live, think, and act only for the offspring of another.

The instincts of this insect are, indisputably, more extraordinary than those of any other in the whole range of animated nature. The ancients magnified them into fabulous miracles. Pliny talks of an Indian ant as big as an Egyptian wolf, of the colour of a cat, which entered the bowels of the earth in search of gold, of which they are said to have been

plundered during the winter by the human inhabitants of those regions.

But exaggeration and credulity apart, the real habits and proceedings of these insects are so extraordinary, that they would stagger our belief, if not confirmed by such observers as Huber and Latreille.

Their nests contain three kinds of individuals, males; females, which have wings; and neuters, which are destitute of these appendages.

"In the warm days which 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 swarming with winged insects; these are the males and females, preparing to quit for ever the scene of their nativity and education. Every thing is in motion; and the silver wings, contrasted with the jet bodies which compose the animated mass, add a degree of splendour to the interesting scene. The bustle increases, till at length the males rise as it were by general impulse into the air, and the females accompany them: the whole swarm alternately rises and falls with a slow movement, to the height of about ten feet; the males flying obliquely with a rapid zigzag motion, and the females, though following the general movement of the column, appearing suspended in the air, like balloons; and having their heads turned towards the wind."

Sometimes the swarms of a whole district unite their infinite myriads, and seen at a distance, says M. Gliditsch*, produce an effect much re

very

* A species of ant, called by Linnæus the formica sacchivora, appeared in such torrents in the island of Granada, and destroyed the sugarcanes so completely by undermining their roots, that a reward of

sembling an aurora borealis, when from the border of the cloud appear several columns of flame and vapour, attended with a variety of luminous rays and lines, resembling forked lightning confined in its brilliancy. The noise emitted by the countless myriads of these creatures is not so loud as the hum of a single wasp, and the slightest breath scatters them abroad. In the midst of these numberless males the females become fecundated, and the greater portion of the former sex immediately perishing, become the food of birds or of fish. So numerous are they, that Dr. Bromley says they formed a column on the water where they had fallen, five or six miles long, eight or ten feet broad, and six inches deep.

The females which escape are destined to found new colonies, and at first do all the work of neuters; in this particular resembling the mother wasp: but prior to their constructing a new habitation, they make themselves voluntary prisoners, by throwing off their wings. So extraordinary a dismemberment re

20,0001. was offered to any one who should discover an effectual mode of destroying them.

They descended from the hills in a flood, and filled not only the plantation, but the roads for miles. Domestic quadrupeds perished; and rats, mice, and reptiles, were devoured by them, and even birds were so harassed when they alighted as quickly to die. Nothing opposed their march: they blindly rushed into the streams and were drowned in such countless myriads, that the aggregation of their tiny carcases dammed up the waters, and formed a bridge for others to pass over. The large fires lighted in their paths were speedily extinguished by the rush of their masses, and had not Providence swept them away in the torrents of a terrible hurricane in 1780, every thing must have fallen before them.-Introduction to Entomology, vol. i. p. 185.