Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- [18??]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Goldsmith's Natural history : with notes from all the popular treatises that have been issued since the time of Goldsmith ... / [edited] by Henry Innes, with a life of Oliver Goldsmith by George Moir Bussey. Source: Wellcome Collection.
821/860 page 445
![Th« common anti of Europe are of two or three different kinds; some red. Home black, some with stings, and others without. Such as have stings, inflict their wounds in that manner; such as are unprovided with these weapons of de- fence, have a pov/er of spurting, from their hinder parts, an acid pungent liquor, which, if it lights upon tne skin, inflames and burns it like nettles. 'I'he body of an ant is divided into the head, breast; and belly. In the head the eyes are placed, which are entirely blacky and under the eyes there are two small horns or feelers, composed of twelve joints^ all covered with a line silky hair. I'he mouth is furnished with two crooked jaws, which project outwards, in each of which are seen incisures, that look like teeth. The breast is covered with a line silky hair, from which project six legs, that are pretty strong and hairy^ the extremities of each armed with two small claws, which the animal uses m climbing. The belly is more reddish than the rest of the Iwdy, which is of a brown chestnut colour, shining as glass, and covered with extremely fine hair. From such a formation, this animal seems bolder, and more active, for its size, than any other of the insect tribe, and fears nut to attack a creature, often above ten times its own magnitude. As soon as the winter is past, in the first fine day in April, the ant-hill, that before seemed a desert, now swarms with new life, and myriads of these inseeb are seen just awaked from their annual lethargy, and preparing for the pleasure* and fatigues of the season. For the first day they never offer to leave the hill which may be considered as their citadel, but run over every part of it, as if tr examine its present situation, to observe what injuries it has sustained during the rigours of winter (^), while they slept, and to meditate and settle the labours ol the day ensuing. At the first display of their forces, none but the wingless tribe appears, while those furnished with wings remain at the bottom. These arc the working ants, that first appear, and that are always destitute of wings ; the males and females, that are furnished with four large wings each, are more slow in making their appearance. Thus, like bees, they are divided into males, females, and the neutral or the working tribe. These are all easily distinguished from each other; the females are much larger than the males ; the working ants are the smallest of all. The two former have wings; which, however, they sometimes are divested of; the latter never have any, and upon them are devolved all the labours that tend to tlie welfare of the community. The female, also, may be distinguished, by the colour and structure of her breast, which is a little more brown than that of the common ant, and a little brighter than that of the male. In eight or ten days after their first appearance, the labours of the hill are in some forwardness; the males and females are seen mixed with the working multitude, and pursued or pursuing each other. Tliey seem no way to partake in the common drudgeries of the state ; the males pursue the females with great animated into activity by the occurrence of Bome days of extraordinary mildness in spring; but, what is not a little wonderful and inex- plicable, they are not roused by much milder weather when it occurs before Christmas,-— on the same principle, perhaps, that a man is more easily awakened after he has slept six or seven hours than in the earlier part of the night. Immediately after the first severe frost in the winter of 1829-30, we dug down into the lower chambers of a nest of the woo<l-ant (formica rvfa), at Forest-hill, Kent, which we had thatched thickly with feni-leaves the preceding November, both to mark the sjiot and to protect the ants in win- (g) Memoiics pour servir a I'llistoi ter. About two feet deep we found the little colonists all huddled up in contiguous sepa- rate chambers, quite motionless till they were exposed to the warm sunshine, when they began to drag themselves sluggishly and re- luctantly along. Even u]>on bringing some of them into a warm room, they did not awaken into summer activity, but remained lethargic, unwilling to move, and refusing to eat, and continued in the same state of semi- torpidity till their brethren in the woods be- gan to bestir themselves to repair the damages caused by the winter storms in the outworks of their encampments.—Insect Transfor- mations. t: des Insectes, par Charles de Geer.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29010585_0821.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
