Volume 2 — FOOTNOTES:

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.

M. Latreille very justly observes that it is physically impossible for the rufescent ants (Polyergus rufescens), on account of the form of their jaws and the accessory parts of the mouth, either to prepare habitations for their family, to procure food, or to feed them.—Considérations nouvelles, &c. p. 408.

i. The body of the Female bee is considerably longer than that of either the drone or the worker. The prevailing colour in all three is the same, black or black-brown; but with respect to the female this does not appear to be invariably the case; for—not to insist upon Virgil's royal bees glittering with ruddy or golden spots and scales, where allowance must be made for poetic licence—Reaumur affirms, after describing some differences of colour in different individuals of this sex, that a queen may always be distinguished, both from the workers and males, by the colour of her body[136]. If this observation be restricted to the colour of some parts of her body, it is correct; but it will not apply to all generally (unless, as I suspect may be the case, by the term body he means the abdomen), for, in all that I have had an opportunity of examining, the prevailing colour, as I have stated it, is the same.

The head is not larger than that of the workers; but the tongue is shorter and more slender, with straighter maxillæ. The mandibles are forficate, and do not jut out like theirs into a prominent angle; they are of the colour of pitch with a red tinge, and terminate in two teeth, the exterior being acute, and the interior blunt or truncated. The labrum or upper-lip is fulvous; and the antennæ are piceous.

In the trunk, the tegulæ or scales that defend the base of the wings are rufo-piceous. The wings reach only to the tip of the third abdominal segment. The tarsi and the apex of the tibiæ are rufo-fulvous. The posterior tibiæ are plane above and covered with short adpressed hairs, having neither the corbicula (or marginal fringe of hairs for carrying the masses of pollen) nor the pecten; and the posterior plantæ have neither the brush formed of hairs set in striæ, nor the auricle at the base.

The abdomen is considerably longer than the head and trunk taken together, receding from the trunk, elongato-conical, and rather sharp at the anus. The dorsal segments are fulvous at the tip; covered with very short, pallid, and, in certain lights, shining adpressed hairs; the first segment being very short, and covered with longer hairs. The ventral segments, except the anal, which is black, are fulvescent or rufo-fulvous, and covered with soft longer hairs. The vagina of the spicula (commonly called the sting) is curved.

ii. The Male bee, or drone, is quite the reverse of his royal paramour; his body being thick, short, and clumsy, and very obtuse at each extremity[137]. It is covered also, as to the head and trunk, with dense hairs.

The head is depressed and orbicular. The tongue is shorter and more slender than that of the female; and the mandibles, though nearly of the same shape, are smaller. The eyes are very large, meeting at the back part of the head. In the space between them are placed the antennæ and stemmata. The former consist of fourteen joints, including the radicle, the fourth and fifth being very short and not easily distinguished.

The trunk is large. The wings are longer than the body. The legs are short and slender. The posterior tibiæ are long, club-shaped, and covered with inconspicuous hairs. The posterior plantæ are furnished underneath with thick-set scopulæ, which they use to brush their bodies.

The claw-joints are fulvescent.

The abdomen is cordate, very short, being scarcely so long as the head and trunk together, consisting of seven segments, which are fulvous at their apex. The first segment is longer than any of the succeeding ones, and covered above with rather long hairs. The second and third dorsal segments are apparently naked; but under a triple lens, in a certain light, some adpressed hairs may be perceived;—the remaining ones are hairy, the three last being inflexed. The ventral segments are very narrow, hairy, and fulvous.

iii. The body of the Workers is oblong.

The head triangular. The mandibles are prominent, so as to terminate the head in an angle, toothless and forcipate. The tongue and maxillæ are long and incurved: the labrum and antennæ black.

In the trunk the tegulæ are black. The wings extend only to the apex of the fourth segment of the abdomen. The legs are all black, with the digits only rather piceous. The posterior tibiæ are naked above, exteriorly longitudinally concave, and interiorly longitudinally convex; furnished with lateral and recumbent hairs to form the corbicula, and armed at the end with the pecten. The upper surface of the posterior plantæ resembles that of the tibiæ; underneath they are furnished with a scopula or brush of stiff hairs set in rows: at the base they are armed with stiff bristles, and exteriorly with an acute appendage or auricle.

The abdomen is a little longer than the head and trunk together; oblong, and rather heart-shaped—a transverse section of it is triangular. It is covered with longish flavo-pallid hairs: the first segment is short with longer hairs; the base of the three intermediate segments is covered, and as it were banded, with pale hairs. The apex of the three intermediate ventral segments is rather fulvescent, and their base is distinguished on each side by a trapeziform wax-pocket covered by a thin membrane. The sting, or rather vagina of the spicula, is straight.

July 10, 1820. A late second swarm was hived into a box constructed so that each comb could be taken out and examined separately. On the 7th of August the queen was removed, and each comb taken out and closely examined: there was not the least appearance of any royal cells, but much brood and eggs in the common ones. On the 14th, three royal cells were observed nearly finished, with a large grub in each. On the 16th, the three cells were sealed. On the 18th and 21st, they remained in the same state. On the 22d, two queens were found hatched, one was removed and the other left with the stock, the remaining royal cell being still closed. On the morning of the 23d, a dead queen was thrown out of the hive, upon which examination being made, the royal cell left closed on the 22d was found open, and a living queen in the stock which was allowed to remain.

[193]

[267] 166.

[270] 51.

[274] 170.

Geoffroy, and after him most modern entomologists, has taken the primary divisions of the Coleoptera order from the number of joints in the tarsus; but this, although perhaps in the majority of cases it may afford a natural division, will not universally. For—not to mention the instance of Pselaphus, clearly belonging to the Brachyptera—both Oxytelus, Grav., and another genus that I have separated from it (Carpalimus, K. Ms.), have only two joints in their tarsi. In this tribe, therefore, it can only be used for secondary divisions.—K.

[523] 65.

[696] 112.

[709]

[825]