Note 78 — LETTER XVII.
Reading edition
One would think the writer of the account of ants in Mouffet had been witness to something similar. "If they see any one idle," says he, "they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their children not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and effeminacy."—Theatr. Ins. 241.