ANT COMMUNITIES 



jacket course the suburbs of a populous ant-hill, and the 

 knowledge of her temper will be conveyed to the ants, 

 who apparently understand that a highly keyed note is 

 a threat which they must needs resent. It is a question 

 how such information is conveyed; but perhaps, like a 

 coursing motor-car, the intruder may give forth not only 

 a hostile note but a pernicious smell ! 



Before entering further upon this theme, it behooves 

 both writer and reader to remember not only the vast 

 gulf which separates us from insects as well as the com- 

 mon bonds of nature that unite us to them. Ento- 

 mologists have already disclosed much of the real life 

 of the lowly creatures that share with us the earth; 

 but we have as yet scarcely passed beyond the threshold 

 of the temple of knowledge that Nature has reared around 

 us. Many problems that have barely been stated re- 

 main unsolved or partly solved, though our scant 

 knowledge might be far more complete "would men 

 observingly distil it out." Innumerable other problems 

 doubtless are beyond the screen, duly to rise as the 

 horizon of discovery shall enlarge. 



What know we, for example, beyond the narrowest 

 bounds, of the senses of ants of their number, their 

 quality, their range? What know we of the endless 

 degrees of sounds and shades of color that may form the 



/ 



world within which insects move, familiar to them, but 

 a terra incognita to us? May there not be a Nature 

 within our known Nature, worlds within our knowable 

 world like the successive enclosures within a Chinese 1 

 "nest* of boxes of which insects know, and wherein 

 may be their largest moiety of life? To them a wild 

 meadow, a flower-garden, a grove, or a brook-side may 

 be a boundless scene of beauty and activity, friendly 



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