I. Species. He describes five species of English ants; viz. 1. 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.