THE LANGUAGE OF ANTS 



of natural animal impulses, without any purpose to 

 communicate the same to another, such as language 

 implies. Even so, it should be considered, first, that 

 these examples are given as types of other uses of 

 mimetic language behind which lies the undoubted pur- 

 pose to communicate. And, second, that the rude 

 evolutionary germs of language in primitive man may 

 have been the utterance of just such impulses; and little 

 more need be claimed for insects. It marks the im- 

 passable difference between the psychic powers of man 

 and those of insects that human language, spoken and 

 written, has developed into its marvellous proportions, 

 while the symbolism of insects, and of animals generally, 

 retains the crudity of ancestral types, and apparently 

 can never pass beyond this bar of nature. 



There was something more in this typical living 

 tableau of the spider and the bee than " gesture lan- 

 guage"; for the wing movements of the bee, as we shall 

 presently note, were special media of communication. 

 But the language of natural bodily motions may claim 

 some further attention here. If an unarmed man be 

 threatened by his fellow, his almost unconscious mode 

 of expressing his feelings will be to dodge or crouch or 

 flee, if he be afraid; or if he be brave and his combative- 

 ness be aroused, to throw himself back upon one leg 

 and put up his fists in self-defense. Under like condi- 

 tions a bear will rise upon its hams and extend its fore 

 paws, and a horse will rear upon his hind legs and strike 

 out with the fore legs and hoofs. 



It is a long step from the primate, the ungulate, and 

 the ruminant to the invertebrate. But let us present sim- 

 ilar conditions to certain spiders say, the " tarantula' 1 

 of the southwestern United States. It takes a rampant 



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