"Immense swarms of ants," to use the words of Dr. Roget, "are occasionally met with, and some have been recorded of such prodigious density and magnitude as to darken the air like a thick cloud, and to cover the ground to a considerable extent where they settled." Mr. Gleditsch describes, in the History of the Berlin Academy,' for 1749, shoals of a small black ant which appeared in Germany, and formed high columns in the air, rising to a vast height, and agitated with a curious intestine motion, somewhat resembling the aurora borealis. A similar flight of ants is spoken of by Mr. Acolutte, a clergyman of Breslau, which resembled columns of smoke, and which fell on the churches and the tops of the houses, where the ante could be gathered by handfuls. In the German Ephemerides,' Dr. Charles Rayger gives an account of a large swarm which crossed over the town of Posen, and was directing its course towards the Danube. The whole town was strewed with ants, so that it was impossible to walk without trampling on 30 or 40 at every step. And Mr. Dorthes, in the 'Journal de Physique' for 1790, relates the appearance of a similar phenomenon at Montpellier. The shoals moved about in different directions, having a singulir intestine motion in each column, and also a general motion of rotation. About sunset all fell to the ground, and, on examining the ants, they were found to belong to the Formica nigra of Linnieus.
it and Expeditions to capture Sares.--ln the name) way as the bees and the wasps of different hives manifest inveterate hostility' when they meet, ants also of the same or of different species wail one another when they meet during their foraging excursions. Besides the individual skirmishes which thence occasmally arise, pitched battles are sometimes fought between the whole or nearly the whole force of populous adjacent colonies. We have never ourselves witnessed any very extensives battles of this kind, such as Iluber describes, in which thousands of combatants were engaged, but we have seen as many as 50 of the Wood-Ants fighting most pertinaciously within the area of • few inches on what were supposed to be the boundaries of their seven] territories. Their bite is so sharp, and the acrid acid
which they infuse is so deleterious, that many are thus disabled or ontright. Huber witnessed on such occasions very extensive carnage.
Besides these skirmishes and battles which occur among all the species, there are whole communities of warrior-ants, as was first discovered by Huber, whose history is so extraordinary as almost to exceed belief The details indeed have hitherto been credited chiefly, if not solely, on the well-known veracity of Huber; but in the autumn of ]S32 we 'had an opportunity of verifying them both in the Black Forest and in Switzerland, with respect to the species which he terms the Amazon Ant (F. raiment, Letreille), and on the Rhine with respect to the Sanguinary Ant.
Both of these species make war on the ants of a different species from themselves, particularly the Dusky Ant (F. fusca), not for the purpose merely of gratifying a propensity to combat, but to make slaves of the vanquished to do the drudgery of the conquerors at home. The manner in which they proceed in this affair manifests, so far as we can judge, deep design, such as might be ascribed to the counsels of a cunning diplomatist. They do not capture the adult ants and carry them into slavery, but make booty of the eggs and cocoous, which, after the contest is decided—and the warriors are always conquerors —are carried off to the Amazonian citadel, and being hatched there, the poor slaves are most probably not aware but that it is their native colony. Huber repeatedly witnessed such expeditions for the purpose of capturing slaves ; but though we were not so fortunate, we witnessed, in a great number of instances, the slaves at work for their warlike captors.
The Amazons have not hitherto been found in Britain, and we were unsuccessful in our attempt to bring over from the Black Forest a neat of live ones with their slaves which we had placed in a box for the purpose.