Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/104

94 Guide. It seems to us even more brilliant in its wit, anc finely touched as verse. Other productions in verse anc prose have long passed into oblivion. The poetical works were collected in 1808 (2 vols.) by the author s son John himself author of The Pleader s Guide, in the same vein with the New Bath Guide. He died on 3d August 1805.

 ANSTRUTHER-EASTER, a royal and parliamentary burgh of Scotland, in the county of Fife, situated on the Firth of Forth, 9 miles S. of St Andrews. It is on the whole an ill-built place, containing tanning, shipbuilding, and fish-curing establishments, and carrying on a considerable amount of sea-fishing and some coasting trade, to accommodate which a new harbour is in course of construction, under the direction of the Board of Fisheries. In 1871 the parliamentary burgh, which, along with Anstruther- Wester, Crail, Cupar, Kilrenny, Pittcnweem, and St Andrews, returns one member to parliament, contained 1289 inhabitants; the royal burgh had a population of 1169. Dr Thomas Chalmers was born at Anstruther-Easter in 1780.  ANSTRUTHER-WESTER, also a royal and parliamentary burgh in Fifeshire, close to Anstruther-Easter, from which it is separated by a small stream called the Dreal Burn. In 1871 the population was 484.  ANT. The insects included under this name are divisible into two distinct groups, which exhibit important differences not only in structure but also in habits. The familiar ant (Formica), found in Britain and Europe generally, belongs to an order of insects known as the Hymenoptera, of which division the bees, wasps, hornets, are also well-known examples. But the Termites, or white ants insects which also live in social communities, and which inhabit tropical regions belong to a different order, that of the Neurop- terous insects, and exhibit differences in several important respects from the ordinary ants. To both species or kinds of these forms it will be necessary to direct attention, and the familiar ants naturally fall to be considered first. The Hymenopterous insects are distinguished by the possession of four membranous wings, although in certain exceptional instances as among certain members of the ant community the wings may be wanting. The organs of the mouth are partly fitted for mastication by the development of jaws, and partly for suctorial purposes by the possession of a proboscis or " antlia." The females of this order generally possess a terminal abdominal append age, forming a " sting " (aculeus), or which may be used in the deposition of the eggs, when it is termed an ovipositor. The Hymenoptera, besides, undergo a " complete " meta morphosis, that is, in their passage from the egg towards adult or mature existence they appear first as grubs, or larvae, then are enclosed in a pupa-case, and finally appear as the perfect, and generally winged insect, or "imago." The Hymenoptera exhibit, perhaps, the most remarkable development among insects of the faculty of instinct, and constitute excellent examples of so-called "social" insects, living in communities regulated by definite laws, each mem ber of the society bearing a separate and well-defined part in the organisation and arrangement of the colony at large. From the earliest times ants have attracted the attention, not only of naturalists, but of philosophers and poets. The ancients were familiar with many of the phenomena characteristic of the ant colony. Aristotle and Pliny, for example, inform us that the labours of ants are regulated in a great measure by the phases of the moon. Pliny also makes mention of a species which he alleges is found in Northern India, which were said to equal Egyptian wolves in size, and were supposed to occupy themselves in digging gold from the bowels of the earth, whilst the inhabitants of the country were said to rob the ants in summer of their accumulated winter treasures. The harvesting and grain-storing habits of ants, so familiar to the popular reader, were at first supposed to be common to all species of ants; but this view has been abun dantly proved to be erroneous, whilst the opposite extreme of asserting that no species practise these habits is to be viewed as equally incorrect. In many cases it is probable that observers have been deceived into the supposition that certain species of ants really carried grains of corn in their mouths, whereas the so-called corn grains of these species were in reality the cocoons or pupa3-cases containing the young and immature forms. And whilst most species of ants are granivorous, or vegetable feeders, certain species are as decidedly carnivorous. These latter kinds do not, therefore, participate in the frugal and industrious habits of their allies. The bibliography of ants is very extensive. Dr King, in the 23rd number of the Philosophical Transactions, described the form of the eggs and of the larvse, and also the habits of ants in reference to their care of their young. Leeuwenhoeck, the Dutch naturalist, traced the successive stages of development in the ants, and demon strated the egg, "larva," "pupa," and "imago," or perfect insect. Swammerdam, with the application of the micro scope, further advanced the knowledge of the development and structure of the ants ; and Linnaeus (Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of /Stockholm) ascertained many facts relative to the reproduction of these forms, and determined that the winged ants are those which alone exercise the generative functions. A Mr Gould published An Account of English Ants, of which work a notice by the Rev. Dr Miles is given in the Philosophical Transac tions for 1747. This account, excellent in many respects, is nevertheless erroneous in certain points, the result of following too closely the analogy presumed to exist between bees and ants. Geoffrey (Hwtoire des Insectes qui se trouvent aux Environs de Paris], a good naturalist otherwise, is a bad authority on the subject of ants. The most complete series of observations on ants, which appeared among the earlier accounts of these forms, are those of De Geer, a Swedish entomologist (Memoires pour servir a VHistoire des Insectes), an observer on whose fidelity the utmost reliance may be placed. Olivier, in the Encyc lopedic Methodique (article Fourmi], summarised the know- ledge of his own and of preceding times, and described a few new species of ants ; and Bonnet, in his Observations sur les Insectes (vol. ii.),has given us some interesting, though by no means extensive information regarding the habits of ants. The "sugar-ant" (?) forms the subject of a memoir in the Philosophical Transactions for 1790, this latter species having caused much havoc among the sugar-plan tations of Grenada over a period of ten years. Latreille, a amous entomologist, in his special monograph (Histoire Naturelle des Fourmis), published at Paris in 1802, gave the most succinct and accurate account of the ant-tribe which had appeared up to that date. His description of the structure and classification of these insects is remark ably clear, and he fully describes one hundred species inown to himself, and mentions twenty-four species which was enabled to describe from the reports of others. He distributed these species among nine families, selecting as .he bases of his classification the situation and structure of he " antennoe " or "feelers," and the disposition of the tbdominal scales. The habits of ants receive the fullest attention at the lands of Pierre Huber of Geneva, who in a treatise (Traits les Mceurs des Fourmis Indigenes) published in 1810, gave a very interesting, lucid, and valuable account of his native ants, drawn from actual observation of the nests and