58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



had access to many larvfe brought two hundred and fifty-seven friends, 

 while those visiting a glass with few larvse only brought eighty-two. 

 The result will appear still more striking if we remember that a cer- 

 tain number, say perhaps twenty-five, would have come to the larvae 

 anyhow, which would make the numbers two hundred and thirty-two 

 as against fifty-seven, a very striking difierence. 



I have elsewhere discussed the relations of flowers to insects, and 

 especially with bees, and particularly the mode in which the flowers 

 wei-e modified so that the bees might transfer the pollen from one 

 flower to another. Ants are also of considerable importance to 

 plants, especially in keeping down the number of insects which feed 

 on them. So far as I know, however, there are no plants which are 

 specially modified in order to be fertilized by ants ; and, indeed, even 

 to those small flowers which any little insect might fertilize, the visits 

 of winged insects are much more advantageous, because, as Mr. Dar- 

 win has shown ia his excellent work on cross and self fertilization of 

 plants, it is important that the pollen should be brought, not only 

 from a difierent flower, but also from a difierent plant, while creeping 

 insects, such as ants, would naturally pass from flower to flower of 

 the same plant. 



Under these circumstances it is important to plants that ants 

 should not obtain access to the flowers, for they would otherwise rob 

 them of their honey without conferring on them any compensating 

 advantage. Accordingly, we not only find in flowers various modes 

 of attracting bees, but also of excluding ants ; and in this way ants 

 have exercised more influence on the vegetable kingdom than might 

 be supposed. Sometimes, for instance, the flowers are protected by 

 chevaux-de-frise of spines and fine hairs pointing downward ( Carlitia, 

 Lmniicm) ; some have a number of glands secreting a glutinous 

 substance, over which the ants cannot pass [Linnma, gooseberry) ; in 

 others the tubff of the flower is itself very narrow, or is almost 

 closed either by hairs or by internal ridges, which just leave space 

 for the proboscis of a bee, but no more. Lastly, some, and especially 

 pendulous flowers {Cyclamen., snowdrop), are so smooth and slippery 

 that ants cannot easily enter them, but often slip ofl" in the attempt, 

 and thus are excluded, just as the pendulous nests of the weaver-birds 

 preclude the entrance of snakes. This, however, is a large subject, 

 into which I cannot now enter. 



Let me, in conclusion, once more say that, as it seems to me, not- 

 withstanding the labors of those great naturalists to whom I grate- 

 fully referred in commencing, there are in natural history few more 

 promising or extensive fields for research than the habits of ants. 

 Fortnightly Heview. 



