_Flocks of the Ants._--Nearly every plant nourishes grubs, which are embellished with the most varied, and frequently the most dazzling colours. The rose-tree aphis, when I examined it through a microscope, seemed to me of a very pleasant bright green. Thrown on its back, it displayed a very big belly, and a very small ungainly head, which appeared to be neither more nor less than a sucker, while it agitated all its limbs. On the whole, I took it to be an innocent creature, which should inspire no repugnant feeling. One can understand how the ants absorb the honey-dew upon its body. (See Bonnet and others, in reference to their prodigious fecundity.) [Illustration] NOTE 15.--Book iii., Chap. v. _The Wasps._--Before speaking of this terrible species, in which, perhaps, we see revealed the loftiest energy of nature, I ought to have spoken of its modest neighbour, the drone. Réaumur, who is not sufficiently known as a writer, and who frequently displays much grace of style, says, very pleasingly, that the poor drones, in their rough little societies, when compared with the royal communities of the wasps and bees, are mere rustics or savages, and their nests so many hamlets, but that we find a pleasure, even after having visited great capitals, in resting our eyes on the simplicity of villages and villagers. (Réaumur, _Mémoires_, vol. vi., p. iii. preface, and p. 4 text.) Notwithstanding their simplicity, the drones are industrious, and have their characteristic manners and virtues. The poor males, so despised elsewhere, are more happily employed here in a society where the lofty speciality of art, not being so strikingly developed in the females, proves less humiliating; they are almost the equals of their spouses, who do not massacre them, as the wasps and bees do their destined husbands. [Illustration] NOTE 16.--Book iii., Chap. viii.