The Insect

by Jules Michelet

It operates by a kind of titillation or gentle traction, such as we exercise upon the cow. These grubs, placed at the extreme limit of animal life—viviparous in summer, oviparous in autumn—are very humble creatures, and prodigiously inferior in intelligence to the ants. The magnifying-glass reveals them to the observer as always bent, and always engaged in feeding. Their attitude is that of the cattle. They are, in truth, the milch-cows of the ants; and that they may always profit by them, the latter frequently transport them to their ant-hill, where they live together on admirably good terms. The ants take great care of the grubs, superintend the incubation, and nourish the adults with their favourite vegetables.

In situations where great difficulty would be experienced in transporting and installing them, they empark them on the ground by throwing up around their field of pasture a fence of twigs and cylinders of earth. This may justly be termed the grazing-field, the chalet of the ants; which repair to it at certain hours to milk their herds, and sometimes carry their young thither for the easier distribution of the food. I am frequently present, especially in the evening, at these Dutch-like scenes, which have hitherto found no Paul Potter among the ants to depict them.

Observe that these grubs, whether transported to the ant-hill or emparked on their favourite feeding-ground, possess the inestimable advantage of having their safety guaranteed by the redoubtable republic. The "lion of the grubs" (as a small worm is called), and other wild beasts, if they dared approach the herd, would feel very cruelly their strong mandibles and burning formic acid.

So far, then, we have no reproach to make; the grubs are cattle, and not slaves. The ants do exactly what we do; they make use of the privilege of superior beings, but exercise it with more gentleness and management than does man.

But we now come to a more delicate consideration. There are two kinds of ants, of a tolerable size, but otherwise of no peculiar distinction, which employ as servants, nurses, and cooks, certain small ants endowed with more skill and ingenuity.

This strange fact, which ought apparently to change our ideas of animal morality, was discovered early in the present century. Pierre Huber, the son of the celebrated observer of the manners and habits of bees, walking one day in a field near Geneva, saw on the ground a strong detachment of reddish-coloured ants on the march, and bethought himself of following them. On the flanks of the column, as if to dress its ranks, a few speed to and fro in eager haste. After marching for about a quarter of an hour, they halt before an ant-hill belonging to the small black ant, and a desperate struggle takes place at its gates.

A small number of the blacks offer a brave resistance; but the great majority of the people thus assailed flee through the gates remotest from the scene of combat, carrying away their young. It was just these which were the cause of the strife; what the blacks most justly feared was the theft of their offspring. And soon the assailants, who had succeeded in penetrating into, the city, might be seen emerging from it loaded with the young black progeny. It was an exact resemblance of a descent of slave-dealers on the coast of Africa.

The red ants, encumbered with their living booty, left the unfortunate city in the desolation of its great loss, and resumed the road to their own habitation, whither their astonished and almost breathless observer followed them. But how was his astonishment augmented when, at the-threshold of the red ants' community, a small population of black ants came forward to receive the plunder, welcoming with visible joy these children of their own race, which, undoubtedly, would perpetuate it in the foreign land.

This, then, is a mixed city, where the strong warrior-ants live in a perfectly good understanding with the little blacks. But what do the latter? Huber speedily discovered that, in effect, they do everything. They alone build; they alone bring up the young red ants and the captives of their own species; they alone administer the affairs of the community, provide its supplies of food, wait upon and nourish their red masters, who, like great infant giants, indolently allow their little attendants to feed them at the mouth. No other occupations are theirs but war, theft, and kidnapping. No other movements in the intervals than to wander about lazily, and bask in the sunshine at the door of their barracks.

The most curious circumstance is, that these civilized helots really love their great barbarous warriors, and carefully tend their children, gladly and cheerfully perform their tasks of servitude, and, more, encourage the extension of their slavery and the abduction of the little blacks. Does not all this wear the appearance of a free adhesion to the established order of things?