"The cuckoo is certainly a favourite with them; as Green says, 'they, (the lesser birds,) are mightily ta'en up with it;' but to what it owes its influence with its parasites I leave to you and other philosophical naturalists to determine: I am content to relate, in simple terms, an interesting fact."
There is so much analogy with these cuckoo-proceedings in the habits of Ants, that, although these cannot correctly be designated as parasites, the details of their manners will not be wholly out of place, in winding up this chapter. I refer to the propensity manifested by certain species of ants to make slaves of the workers of another species, leading them into captivity and compelling them to labour for the benefit of the marauders. Strangely enough, the parallel between the human and the formican slave-trade holds to this further extent that, so far as we know, the kidnappers are red or pale-coloured ants, and the slaves, like true niggers, are black.
The slave-hunting expeditions are planned and executed with the utmost skill and courage. "When the red ants are about to sally forth on a marauding expedition, they send scouts to ascertain the exact position in which a colony of negroes may be found; these scouts, having discovered the object of their search, return to the nest, and report their success. Shortly afterwards the army of red ants marches forth, headed by a vanguard which is perpetually changing; the individuals which constitute it, when they have advanced a little before the main body, halting, falling into the rear, and being replaced by others: this vanguard consists of eight or ten ants only.
"When they have arrived near the negro colony, they disperse, wandering through the herbage and hunting about, as if aware of the propinquity of the object of their search, yet ignorant of its exact position. At last they discover the settlement, and the foremost of the invaders rushing impetuously to the attack, are met, grappled with, and frequently killed by the negroes on guard; the alarm is quickly communicated to the interior of the nest; the negroes sally forth by thousands, and the red ants rushing to the rescue, a desperate conflict ensues, which, however, always terminates in the defeat of the negroes, who retire to the inmost recesses of their habitation. Now follows the scene of pillage; the red ants, with their powerful mandibles, tear open the sides of the negro ant-hill, and rush into the heart of the citadel. In a few minutes each of the invaders emerges, carrying in its mouth the pupa of a worker negro, which it has obtained in spite of the vigilance and valour of its natural guardians. The red ants return in perfect order to their nest, bearing with them their living burdens. On reaching the nest the pupæ appear to be treated precisely as their own, and the workers, when they emerge, perform the various duties of the community with the greatest energy and apparent good will; they repair the nest, excavate passages, collect food, feed the larvæ, take the pupæ into the sun-shine, and perform every office which the welfare of the colony seems to require; in fact, they conduct themselves entirely as if fulfilling their original destination."[236]
APPENDIX.
ON THE SEA-SERPENT.
Since the publication of my former volume, which concluded with an examination of the evidence for the existence of this unrecognised animal, two other important testimonies have been brought under my notice. The first of these is that of an officer of high literary reputation, the Consular representative of Great Britain lately residing at Boston, in the United States, who thus gives his personal testimony and that of his lady to the appearance of the monster:—
"On a Sunday afternoon in the middle of August, above a hundred persons, at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an extraordinary appearance in the sea, at no great distance from the shore. Large shoals of small fish were rushing landwards in great commotion, leaping from the water, crowding on each other, and shewing all the common symptoms of flight from the pursuit of some wicked enemy. I had already more than once remarked this appearance from the rocks, but in a minor degree; and on these occasions I could always distinguish the shark, whose ravages among the "manhaidens" was the cause of such alarm. But the particular case in question was far different from those. The pursuer of the fugitive shoals soon became visible; and that it was a huge marine monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the dimensions of an ordinary fish, was evident to all the observers. No one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea-serpent, or one of the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of its apparent dimensions so accurate as to carry conviction to the sceptical. For us who witnessed it, it was enough to be convinced that the thing was a reality. But one of the spectators, Dr Amos Binney, a gentleman of scientific attainments, drew up a minute account of it, which is deposited in the archives of one of the Philosophical Societies of Boston. I was and am quite satisfied that on this occasion I had a partial and indistinct but positive view of this celebrated nondescript. But had the least doubt rested on my mind, it would have been entirely removed by the event of the day following the one just recorded. On that day, a little before noon, my wife was sitting, as was her wont, reading on the upper piazza of the hotel. She was alone. The gentlemen, including myself and my son, were, as usual, absent at Boston, and the ladies were scattered about in various directions. She was startled by a cry from the house of "The sea-serpent! The sea-serpent!" But this had been so frequent, by the way of joke, since the event of the preceding day, and was so like "The wolf, the wolf!" of the fable, that it did not attract her particular attention for a moment or two, until she observed two women belonging to the family of the hotel-keeper running along the piazza towards the corner nearest the sea, with wonder in their eyes, and the cry of "The serpent, the serpent! He is turning, he is turning!" spontaneously bursting from their lips. Then my wife did fix her looks in the direction they ran; and sure enough she saw, apparently quite close beyond the line formed by the rising ground above the rocks, a huge serpent, gliding gracefully through the waves, having evidently performed the action of turning round. In an instant it was in a straight line, moving rapidly on; and after coasting for a couple of minutes the north-west front of the hotel, and (as accurately as the astonished observer could calculate) looking as it stretched at full length in the water about the length of the piazza, that is to say, about ninety feet; it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no more.