FRATERNAL CONFEDERACIES AMONG ANTS 



to time ants and cocoons collected from widely separated 

 hills were put in, and these were always and at once 

 adopted. This amity and co-operation in the duties 

 and responsibilities of good citizenship continued until 

 the composite republic of drafted citizens was broken up. 



The natural explanation of these rare conditions is 

 this: the antennal interchanges between the various 

 parties at once showed that all were fellow-citizens of 

 one commonwealth, equally entitled to communal wel- 

 come and place, which were accorded at once upon the 

 recognition of the one common nest-odor which is the 

 badge of citizenship. 



Thus it appeared (and to the writer it was then an 

 astounding revelation) that among the myriads of 

 creatures occupying these more than seventeen hundred 

 mounds there was complete fraternity if, indeed, they 

 were not one mighty confederacy! Here was a republic 

 which in the number of its separate states for every 

 mound was an independent community of ants and in 

 the multitude of its total population exceeded the most 

 sanguine prophecy of the future American republic. 

 It would be hard to conceive of anything like local or 

 communal loyalty, an inflated devotion to "state rights," 

 or that jealousy and conflict of interests which are apt 

 to develop among neighboring communities, as leading 

 on to war among the insect commonwealths which were 

 the subjects of the above experiments. 



If a city be (as it has been defined) "a place inhabited 

 by a large, permanent, organized community," the 

 name "Ant City," by which it is popularly known, is 

 fitly given to this vast concourse of united emmets, or, 

 indeed, to any one mature colony thereof. Naturally 

 the question often occurred, How many ants are here 



