CHAPTER VI 

 THE LANGUAGE OF AXTS AND OTHER INSECTS 



LANGUAGE is essential to effective government 

 among social creatures. Without means of com- 

 munication of some sort, it would be impossible for 

 societies to hold together and to act together in those 

 communal movements which are alike the evidence and 

 the end of social organizations. Thus we infer that 

 some way of making known the common will and aim 

 must exist among such insects as ants, bees, wasps, and 

 termites that maintain permanent sodalities. And so 

 we find it in ant communes. Thus is preserved unity 

 and efficiency, by holding the citizens together; by dis- 

 seminating purposes and influences important to civic 

 success; and by securing at once mobility of action and 

 the concentrated force of the republic, for peaceful ser- 

 vice, for common defence, and for aggressive enterprise. 

 Men commonly think of language as a vocal medium 

 for conveying thought and emotion from one individual 

 to others. As thus defined, insects are dumb, for they 

 have no true voice nor organs of speech such as belong 

 to " articulate speaking men." They also lack the means 

 of uttering such cries as characterize birds and brutes. 

 But if we take language as simply an understandable 

 medium for expressing emotions, insects are thus en- 

 dowed. By certain movements of the body and of 



parts of the body, especially the wings, antenna), and 



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