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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



bond of unity which tends to the welfare of the 

 community as a whole. Should, however, a single 

 member of that community fall into danger, it receives 

 no assistance from its comrades, although it may 

 have the poor consolation that, should it lose its life, 

 its dead body will be carried to the nest. Sir John 

 Lubbock has instanced this, in the case of one of his 

 ants, which, having fallen into some honey and being 

 unable to extricate itself, was left to perish. Similar 

 instances have come under my notice time after time : 

 many of my ants having suffered a lingering death, 

 whilst scores of their companions have been quietly 

 sipping the honey close to them. Wondering whether 

 this lack of sympathy was due to the fact that, not 

 having experienced a similar danger, the ants feeding 

 in safety were utterly unconscious of the danger in 

 which their comrade was placed, I resolved to try 

 another experiment. 



I took a small jar half full of water, and placed it 

 imder the glass cover. In the jar I placed a piece of 

 stick, one end of which was resting on the bottom, 

 and the other against the top, thus providing a safe 

 escape for any ant that might fall into the water and 

 was fortunate enough to reach it. In a short time 

 there were some six or seven unfortunates struggling 

 in the water. Out of this number, four succeeded in 

 reaching the stick and in climbing into safety. These 

 did not at once rush away from the dangerous place, 

 but rested for a while on the stick, while their less 

 fortunate fellows were left struggling for life. Now, 

 it would have been quite an easy matter for those on 

 the stick to have lent some assistance to those in the 

 water. 



Assistance, however, was not forthcoming ; and 

 although they were several times almost touching the 

 stick, they would have perished miserably had I not 

 gone to the rescue. 



Perfect in industry, yet lacking sympathy. 



It is a curious fact, that although the little country 

 town of Morpeth is nestled down amongst woods — 

 woods right and woods left — in only one of these, the 

 Lady's Chapel wood, or Bothal wood, as it is com- 

 monly called by visitors, can Formica ritfa be found. 

 Other woods present little difference to the eye of 

 man ; yet you may traverse mile upon mile, inhaling 

 the fragrant scents wafted by pleasant breezes, and 

 enjoying the rich sylvan scenery of which there is 

 abundance, without seeing a solitary specimen of the 

 wood ant. Once, however, you have struck the 

 delightful riverside path leading to the village of 

 Bothal, you find yourself literally in the home of 

 the ant. They appear here, there, and every- 

 where, all intently busy, all setting a rare example 

 of industry. 



Each year their nests increase in number, yet they 

 are always confined to the same limit. For a stretch 

 of half a mile, you will find the woody banks dotted 

 here and there with their hillocks, yet they never 

 seem to cross the boundary-line, east, west, north, or 



south. And it would seem as though at some future 

 time this space will be one mass of ants' nests. 



One nest in particular I noticed, of an extra- 

 ordinary size, whilst only a few feet distant was a 

 small colony which was evidently an offspring of its 

 huge neighbour ; it evidently having been populated 

 by a queen from the older nest. The ants, too, must 

 have recognised the relationship, as there were no 

 signs of any pugnacious feeling amongst them. 



Anxious to ascertain whether or no there was a 

 similar good feeling existing with members of the 

 other communities in the immediate neighbourhood, 

 I secured a few specimens from three other nests, and 

 bringing them home with me, I turned them loose 

 into my nest, which, as I have said, I brought from 

 the same locality. The result was that the strangers 

 were almost immediately set upon and killed. 



As this article is already assuming too large 

 dimensions, I shall again leave further observation 

 for a future article. 



VARIATION IN THE MOLLUSCA, AND ITS 

 PROBABLE CAUSE. 



By Joseph W. Williams. 



Part III. — Preliminary Remarks to a Chapter 

 to succeed on the probable cause of 

 Variation. 



I HAVE in the first part, and more especially in 

 the second part, discussed the good and the bad 

 of an extensive variety-naming, and accorded some 

 limits farther than which, in my thinking, variety- 

 namers should not trespass. It now remains for me 

 to consider the other portion of my subject — the 

 Probable [Cause of Variation — which I stated would 

 discuss heredity as the main factor in producing what 

 I shall call "congenital variation;" and since this 

 brings in to our notice all recent work on the cell- 

 theory as directly bearing on the point at issue, and 

 since many of my readers do not pretend to any 

 extensive physiological and anatomical knowledge, I 

 must leave the question of heredity to a future part, 

 and discuss here almost in its entirety the cell-theory 

 for their benefit in understanding what I shall have 

 to say hereafter. For the drawings I am indebted 

 to my friend Mr. Frederick Lambert-Siggs, B.A., 

 the librarian at tlie Middlesex Hospital Medical 

 School. Throughout I accept it as a truism that the 

 cause of variation in all animals is the same — per- 

 haps, ultimately, referable to a "mode of motion." 



Lying in the substance of the hepato-pancreas 

 [Miileldarmdrmc of Frenzel) in all snails is an 

 acinous gland — the hermaphrodite gland or ovotestis 

 in which both ova and spermatozoa are produced 

 from the same kind of germinal epithelium, the ova 

 from the peripheral portion, the spermatozoa from 

 the more central portion of each acinus. These ova 



