Note 85 — LETTER XVII.

Since the publication of the first edition of this volume I have met with fresh confirmation of the extraordinary history here related. Having been induced to visit Paris, and calling upon M. Latreille (so justly celebrated as one of the first entomologists of the age, and to whom I feel infinitely indebted for the friendly attentions which he paid to me during my too short stay in that metropolis), he assured me, that he had verified all the principal facts advanced by Huber. He has also said the same in his Considérations nouvelles et générales sur les insectes vivant en Société. (Mém. du Mus. iii. 407.) At the same time he informed me that there was a nest of the rufescent ants in the Bois de Boulogne, to which place he afterwards was so good as to accompany me. We went on the 25th of June, 1817. The day was excessively hot and sultry. A little before five in the afternoon we began our search. At first we could not discern a single ant in motion. In a minute or two, however, my friend directed my attention to one individual—two or three more next appeared—and soon a numerous army was to be seen winding through the long grass of a low ridge in which was their formicary. Just at the entrance of the wood from Paris, on the right-hand and near the road, is a bare place paled in for the Sunday amusement of the lower orders—to this the ants directed their march, and upon entering it divided into two columns, which traversed it rapidly and with great apparent eagerness; all the while exploring the ground with their antennæ as beagles with their noses, evidently as if in pursuit of game. Those in the van, as Huber also observed, kept perpetually falling back into the main body. When they had passed this inclosure, they appeared for some time to be at a loss, making no progress but only coursing about: but after a few minutes delay, as if they had received some intelligence, they resumed their march and soon arrived at a negro nest, which they entered by one or two apertures. We could not observe that any negroes were expecting their attack outside the nest, but in a short time a few came out at another opening, and seemed to be making their escape. Perhaps some conflict might have taken place within the nest, in the interval between the appearance of these negroes and the entry of their assailants. However this might be, in a few minutes one of the latter made its appearance with a pupa in its mouth; it was followed by three or four more; and soon the whole army began to emerge as fast as it could, almost every individual carrying its burthen. Most that I observed seemed to have pupæ. I then traced the expedition back to the spot from which I first saw them set out, which according to my steps was about 156 feet from the negro formicary. The whole business was transacted in little more than an hour. Though I could trace the ants back to a certain spot in the ridge before mentioned, where they first appeared in the long grass, I did not succeed in finding the entrance to their nest, so that I was deprived of the pleasure of seeing the mixed society. As we dined at an auberge close to the spot, I proposed renewing my researches after dinner; but a violent tempest of thunder and rain, though I attempted it, prevented my succeeding; and afterwards I had no opportunity of revisiting the place.