The natural history of ants / by M.P. Huber. Translated from the French, with additional notes, by J.R. Johnson.

  • Huber, P. (Pierre), 1777-1840.
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of ants / by M.P. Huber. Translated from the French, with additional notes, by J.R. Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    already sung by a great poet, * would furnish their historian with a rich and brilliant subject. Hitherto, we have not been enabled to compare those in which ants engage, to those of any other species of animals. If it be true, that war is one of the consequences of social order, what shall we be induced to think, on perceiving regular armies issuing from the gates of two rival cities, and going to the ren- contre upon an eminence, where battle is given, and where equal courage and car- nage are displayed on each side ? What shall we say of those bodies of troops, who only wait the signal of danger, to come to the assistance of the advanced guard ? of those champions, which struggle in pairs? of those chains of wrestlers, who balance their strength, and seize the favourable moment to destroy the equilibrium ? of those prisoners led * Vide Virgil’s Géorgie?» 4th Canto. t hese combats have been described with great accuracy by the poet. — A.