Societies of Ants are as remarkable and interesting as those of he bees, and their arrangements are even more complicated and various. They have been, perhaps, less perfectly studied, only because they are less useful to mankind. The principal circumstances relating to them will be found detailed in other chapters. There is, however, one singular relation which some species of ants bear to other ants, and to other insects also, which is worthy of notice here.

There are many insects, inhabiting certain plants, and known under the names of pucerons, aphides, or plant-lice, which exude from their bodies a peculiar fluid, in small limpid drops of a sweet taste. This is a favorite food of some ants, and is not only taken up by them when it has been deposited upon the leaves, but also is directly sucked up as it is produced by the animals themselves. Huber gives the following account of his first notice of this singular phenomenon. He watched closely the movements of a single ant. "I saw it at first pass several pucerons, which it did not, however, disturb. It shortly after stationed itself near one of the smallest, and appeared to caress it, by touching the extremity of its body, alternately with its antennæ, with an extremely rapid movement. I saw, with much surprise, the fluid proceed from the body of the puceron, and the ant take it in its mouth. Its antennæ were afterward directed to a much larger puceron than the first, which, on being caressed after the same manner, discharged the nourishing fluid in greater quantity, which the ant immediately swallowed." This process it repeated on a succession of individuals, till its appetite was satisfied, when it returned perfectly contented to its nest. Huber observed the same relation to exist between ants and the gall insect; and, so far from this supply of food being regarded as plunder, these insects and the ants live together on terms of the most perfect amity. Farther than this, societies have been observed in which the pucerons live together in the same community with the ants, feeding themselves from the roots of plants, and furnishing their fellow inhabitants with the secretion they so much prize, and which, in some communities, constitutes their principal food.

These pucerons, therefore, stand in the same relation to ants,

that cows and goats do to the human race. The ants take care of them, guard them from being stolen by other ants, in times of danger convey them to a place of safety, and, in fact, regard them with the same jealous care that a man does his flocks and herds. They go even farther than this. They collect their eggs, transfer them to their own nests, take the same precautions with regard to them that they do with regard to their own, and, when the new animal has come to life, rear it with assiduous care and add it to their stock.

A still more remarkable circumstance has been observed with regard to a species of ants, called, on account of their martial character, Amazons. These sometimes constitute a community by themselves, all its offices being performed by individ uals of the race. But in other cases they attack in large numbers the nests of another species, of a dark ash-color, drive away their inhabitants, seize upon their larvæ and pupa, and convey them to their own residences. Here these are hatched and reared, become the property of their captors, and are the sole laborers of the community. They build the nests, they procure food, they even take all the charge of the larvæ, which are from time to time brought in by the Amazons after their hostile excursions. They are, in fact, reduced to the condition of slaves; and from their dark color, as compared with those whom they serve, have been called negroes. In fact, the Amazon bears to them the same relation, both in condition and color, that the white man does to the black man whom he enslaves. There is this difference: - the Amazons replenish their own numbers in the ordinary way, there being among them, males, females, and neuters; but the negroes do not breed in captivity; only the neuters, or laborers, are made captive, and their number is only kept good by a perpetual robbery.

Though thus systematic in their policy, it does not appear that the affairs of a community of ants are carried on under the direction of any chief. They march forth in bands, but it is like a horde of undisciplined barbarians, and not like regular troops, organized, and guided by their leaders. Each individual acts in concert with the others, but it is under the mysterious direction of his own impulse, and not at the command of an ac

knowledged master. They constitute a most absolute democ racy, in which there is not even a temporary government to which they acknowledge submission, but where the instinctive subservience of each individual to the purposes of the community takes the place of laws that depend for their execution upon subordination of ranks.

CHAPTER XV. (W.)

OF THE HOSTILITIES OF ANIMALS, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE.

DEATH is an established law of Nature, and is as necessary an event in the order of Nature and Providence as birth. Every animal sooner or later comes to the termination of its existence, as the result of an inevitable law of Life. Very few, however, even of our own species, who have it in their power to study out and put in practice the best means for the prolongation of life, reach its natural term. A large proportion of mankind, by violence, want, accident, or disease, are prematurely cut off; and of other species a still larger proportion are sacrificed to the same causes, and more especially to that provision by which one animal becomes the food of another.

Man is the most universal destroyer. His empire over animals, by means of his intellect, his skill, his ingenuity, and his artifices, is unbounded. He subdues them to his uses as domestic slaves, and then slaughters them as food. He hunts them in the wild state for their skins, their hair, their fur, their teeth, their horns, and their flesh. He pursues and destroys them for his amusement. He lays each kingdom under contribution for his wants, his comforts, his love of gain, or his pastime.

Next to him come the carnivorous quadrupeds, some of whom, live exclusively on flesh, whilst others are addicted to a mixed diet, and can even subsist upon vegetable productions alone. By their depredations, immense numbers of lives among the smaller tribes are daily destroyed, though the larger species, as

the elephant and the buffalo, by no means escape their 1avages. Among birds, the carnivorous propensity is far more universally diffused. Of the exclusively carnivorous, the number is not very large, neither is it so of the exclusively herbivorous. There are few species to whom worms, insects, and indeed animal food in many forms, does not prove a welcome repast.

But the amount of destruction among terrestrial animals is small as compared with that which takes place among the inhabitants of the ocean. With few exceptions, these are all car nivorous. The whale opens his capacious jaws, and at a single swallow engulfs millions of the smaller animals of which the waters are full. The larger fish are constantly in pursuit of the smaller; while the smaller devour the spawn of the larger, as well as worms, mollusca, and zoöphytes. Their whole life seems to be spent in the search for food; and so eager is their appetite, that scarcely anything is rejected. With few exceptions, they seem to be devoid of the parental instinct, and devour their own offspring as readily as anything else.

The demand for air is so urgent, and the want of it so immediately destructive of life, that its supply has not been made dependent upon the voluntary efforts of the individual. It is not only universally diffused over the surface of the earth, but penetrates its interior, and pervades the waters also. It is not so with food, the deprivation of which is as certainly, though less immediately, fatal. Animals are led to seek for it by an appetite of the most imperious and irresistible nature; and, as the necessity for it is constantly returning, the desire for it is so constantly present, that, when not asleep or interested by the sentiments and occupations connected with the production and care of their young, their attention appears to be mainly engaged, and their lives to be spent, in seeking and enjoying a supply of food. The desire of satisfying this one appetite seems to be the ever-predominant feeling in every animal, so far as it is a conscious be ing; and even in those lower tribes, where the functions of life are carried on either without any distinct consciousness or with a very feeble degree of it, the same propensity governs the economy, even though it be not felt, or be not connected with a clear effort of the will.

The necessity for a regular supply of food is, therefore, one of the principal causes of the destruction of life, and hunger the most urgent of the appetites. It leads animals to brave every danger. When excessive, it even overpowers the love of offspring; inducing the parents to sacrifice the necessities of their progeny to their own, and even to devour it. Those which usually stand in awe of man, will then venture to attack him. The wolf becomes almost frantic under the pangs of hunger. All idea of fear is banished. He attacks companies of armed men ; he assails human dwellings. He is repelled only by the most determined resistance, and by a wholesale slaughter. He returns again and again to the assault. The eagle, in his ordinary condition, is afraid of man, and is easily driven away even by children; but, when impelled by excessive hunger, he not only seizes kids, lambs, goats, and the young of the reindeer, but has been known to attack the young of our own species. There is a tradition among the Swiss of a most painful occurrence connected with the lammergeyer, or great eagle of the Alps. A young mother, whilst engaged at work in the fields, laid her child down upon the ground, at a short distance from her. It was sleeping quietly, when it was suddenly pounced upon by a large eagle, and borne away in its talons. In vain the poor mother pursued with frantic cries. In vain she implored aid from others. siderable time the screams of the helpless infant were heard through the air. They gradually became fainter and fainter in the distance, and the wretched mother saw her child no more. She became a maniac.

For a con

Two little children, of five and seven years of age, were amusing themselves together in a wheat-field, in imitation of the reapers, when a large eagle came down upon them and attempted to seize the elder. The boy, being armed with a sickle, repelled the attack. The bird, though foiled, was not daunted, and, alighting at a short distance, soon repeated the assault. The courageous boy struck at him resolutely with his weapon, which, fortunately, entered under the wing, passed through the ribs, and, wounding a vital part, laid his enemy dead at his feet.

Beside the immense destruction of the life of animals which