ON THE HABITS OF ANTS. 57 



ideas. In sui^port of this I may adduce the following experiment : 

 Two strips of paper were attached to the board just mentioned (p. 

 54), and parallel to one another, and at the other end of each I placed 

 a piece of glass. In the glass at the end of one tape I placed a con- 

 siderable number (three to six hundred) of larvae. In the second I 

 put two or three larvae only. I then took two ants, and placed one of 

 them to the glass with many larva?, the other to that with two or 

 three. Each of them took a larva and carried it to the nest, return- 

 ing for another, and so on. After each journey I put another larva in 

 the glass witli only two or three larvse, to replace that which had 

 been removed. Now, if other ants came under tlie above circum- 

 stances as a mere matter of accident, or accompanying one another 

 by chance, or if they simply saw the larvae which were being brought, 

 and consequently concluded that they might themselves also find 

 larvse in the same place, then the numbers going to the two glasses 

 ought to be approximately equal. In each case the number of jour- 

 neys made by the ants would be nearly the same ; consequently, if it 

 were a matter of smell, the two routes would be in the same condi- 

 tion. It would be impossible for an ant, seeing another in the act of 

 bringing a larva, to judge for itself whether there were few or many 

 larvae left behind. On the other hand, if the strangers were brought, 

 then it would be curious to see whether more were brought to the 

 glass with many larvae than to that which only contained two or 

 three. I should also mention that every stranger was imprisoned 

 until the end of the experiment. I will select a few of the results: 



Experiment 1. Time occupied, one hour. The ant with few 

 larvae made six visits, and brought no friends. The one with many 

 larvse made seven, and brought eleven friends. 



ExPERiMEisT 3. Time occupied, three hours. The ant with few 

 larvse made twenty-four journeys, and brought five friends. The one 

 with many larvae made thirty-eight journeys, and brought twenty-two 

 friends. 



Experiment 5. Time occupied, one hour. The ant with few 

 larvffi made ten journeys, and brought three friends. The other made 

 five journeys, and brought sixteen fiiends. 



Experiment 9. Time occupied, one hour. The ant with few 

 larvae made eleven journeys, and brought one friend. The one with 

 many larvae made fifteen journeys, and brought thirteen friends. 



Experiment 10. I now reversed the glasses, the same two ants 

 being under observation ; but the ant which in the previous observa- 

 tion had few larvae to carry off now consequently had many, and vice 

 versa. Time occupied, two hours. The ant with few larvae made 

 twenty-one journeys, and brought one friend. The one with many 

 larvae made twenty-two journeys, and brought twenty friends. These 

 two experiments are, I think, especially striking. 



Taken as a whole, I found that in about fifty hours the ants which 



