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If we had not known of any other slave-making ant, it would have been hopeless to have speculated how so wonderful an instinct could have been perfected. Formica sanguinea was likewise first discovered by P. Huber to be a slave-making ant. This species is found in the southern parts of England, and its habits have been attended to by Mr.
I will select only three, out of the several which I shall have to discuss in my future work, namely, the instinct which leads the cuckoo to lay her eggs in other birds' nests; the slave-making instinct of certain ants; and the comb-making power of the hive-bee; these two latter instincts have generally, and most justly, been ranked by naturalists as the most wonderful of all known instincts.
Darwin's ingenious book in which he gives the reins more completely to his fancy than where he deals with the improvement of instinct by his principle of natural selection. We need but instance his assumption, without a fact on which to build it, that the marvellous skill of the honey-bee in constructing its cells is thus obtained, and the slave-making habits of the Formica Polyerges thus formed.
Can all this force you to put the cap upon the climax to clinch the nail by doing that, without which nothing in the work of slave-making would be attempted? The slaveholder is the soul of the whole system. Without him, the chattel principle is a lifeless abstraction. Without him, charters, and markets, and laws, and testaments, are empty names. And does he think to escape responsibility?
In one instance I found to my surprise an independent community of F. flava under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F. sanguinea; and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage.
If we had not known of any other slave-making ant, it would have been hopeless to have speculated how so wonderful an instinct could have been perfected. Another species, Formica sanguinea, was likewise first discovered by P. Huber to be a slave-making ant. This species is found in the southern parts of England, and its habits have been attended to by Mr.
Formica sanguinea, on the other hand, possesses much fewer slaves, and in the early part of the summer extremely few: the masters determine when and where a new nest shall be formed, and when they migrate, the masters carry the slaves. Both in Switzerland and England the slaves seem to have the exclusive care of the larvæ, and the masters alone go on slave-making expeditions.
Hence, in fact, the law of the Conditions of Existence is the higher law; as it includes, through the inheritance of former adaptations, that of Unity of Type. Instincts comparable with habits, but different in their origin. Instincts graduated. Aphides and ants. Instincts variable. Domestic instincts, their origin. Natural instincts of the cuckoo, ostrich, and parasitic bees. Slave-making ants.
If we had not known of any other slave-making ant, it would have been hopeless to speculate how so wonderful an instinct could have been perfected. Another species, Formica sanguinea, was likewise first discovered by P. Huber to be a slave-making ant. This species is found in the southern parts of England, and its habits have been attended to by Mr.
In one instance I found to my surprise an independent community of F. flava under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F. sanguinea; and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage.
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