An Account Of English Ants

Author : J. K. Donisthorpe
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330425343
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (253 download)

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Download or read book British Ants written by J. K. Donisthorpe and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-27 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from British Ants: Their Life History and Classification The study of British ants has long been retarded by the want of a comprehensive work. In spite of the great and admitted fascination of the subject very few books have been devoted to it, and of these not one attempts to deal with the whole subject. It is with the object of supplying this long-felt want that the present volume has been written. The Rev. W. Gould, who may justly be called the Father of British Myrmecology, published a little book - "An Account of English Ants" - in 1747. Although this is of great interest - both as a curiosity and also for the really admirable account of some habits of a few British ants - the author only knew five species, and of course a vast amount of information has accumulated since his time. Lord Avebury's well-known work on "Ants, Bees and Wasps" (1882), which includes most of his earlier papers on these insects, is, as regards ants, almost restricted to experiments on behaviour. The Rev. Farren-White's small popular book, "Ants and Their Ways" (1883), which touches on ants in general, gives a number of useful notes on British species, but it is neither very scientific nor accurate. Finally Edward Saunders in his admirable Hymenoptera Aculeata (1896), devoted some twenty-six pages to the British ants. The treatment is almost entirely systematic and naturally after the lapse of so many years requires bringing up to date. This brief list shows how great is the need for a work which will include all that is now known on our ant fauna. Such a work I have endeavoured to write, and as I have been studying the habits of ants for over twenty years, have taken al! our British species, and have kept most of them in captivity, I feel in some measure justified in undertaking the task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.