Anyone observing or reading about ants might exclaim, on finding that they utilised the natural product of other insects and kept them in captivity in order to do so, “Where will this end? May they not, then, also keep slaves?” And in very fact, as all the world now knows, we do find what is called slavery amongst ants, though to me it hardly seems the right word, since there is perfect willingness on the part of the slave, and no power of punishment lies with the master. There is equality, moreover, since this is not a matter of the kind of things which one class of a community does and another does not do, but of the spirit in which each does them. With the ants we have the Japanese spirit—or rather the Japanese seem getting nearer to the ants—and so there is real equality. However, the first act which makes these creatures slaves—for I will use terms as I find them—is one of violent and deadly hostility, and through it they are, of set purpose, taken possession of and carried off to the nest. At that period, however, they are yet in the cradle, have yet to be born into their last and most perfect state of life. From the moment they are so born they grow up as a part, and indeed the most important part, of the body politic, and of such pleasure and consideration as obtains in ant-life they have their full share. From the above it may be gathered that these ant-slaves are ants themselves, and this, indeed, is the case. One species of ant raids the nest of another, overpowers the able-bodied inhabitants, slays or incapacitates a certain number, and carries away with it to its own nest as many of the helpless pupæ as it is able to. For a great many years—thousands probably—these combats and carrying off of spoil had been observed, but it had always been imagined that the pupæ—or ants’ eggs, as they are commonly called—were taken as provisions, merely to be stored in the nest of the victor, and there eaten at leisure. The discovery of the real truth was an era in the study of ant-history, and it was made by a Frenchman—Pierre Huber—a man of whom Darwin says that he was a “better observer even than his celebrated father,” for Pierre was the son of François Huber, the blind man, who yet found out all about bees. I hardly see how he can have been _better_ myself; but the son was not blind, and, of course, eyesight is an advantage in observation.