rbance of the nest proceeded
actively during at least two hours. The nest appeared to be by no
means a large one. At the end of two hours, however, the ants were
still rushing hither and thither, bent on errands unknown to their
observers, although the work of conveying the chrysalides had at the
lapse of the period just mentioned entirely ceased. Five and a half
hours after the nest had been alarmed, not an ant was visible over the
disturbed area, and our next task was that of investigating the manner
in which the insects had dispersed themselves and their belongings in
their new habitation by carefully removing the flat sloping stone
already mentioned as that beneath which the main stream of the ants
had disappeared. Not an insect was to be seen after this operation was
performed, and it was only after the removal of several small stones
which lay below the flat stone that the colony in its new sphere was
brought into view. Our investigation once again excited the restless
beings. Then ensued, for the second time, the seizure of the
chrysalides, which, however, were to be seen packed together in a
secure position and already partly covered with particles of earth
and sand. To have reached the position in which we found them, the
insects must have descended at least three inches after entering below
the stone, and the labor of the continual ascent in search of fresh
chrysalides must therefore have been of no light kind. We saw enough
to convince us that the ants had already settled down in a new
organization, which, with an undisturbed history, might repeat the
peaceful state of their former life; and we also had the thought
presented, that in the exercise of their duties under the pressure of
an unwonted exigency, the insect behaved and acted with no small
degree of intelligence, and apparently in harmonious concert to the
desired end.

But the thoughts suggested by the brief observation of the disturbed
ant's nest hardly end thus. We may very naturally proceed to inquire
into the regular organization and constitution of the ant colony, and
also, as far as fact and theory may together lead, into the
analogies--if analogies there be--which exist between the social
instincts of ants and the ways of the higher animals, man included.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. 1, Winged termite; 2, wingless termite; 3,
soldier; 4, worker; 5, female swollen with eggs.]

The common ants and their neighbors belong to the order of insects
kn