THE COMMUNITY OF THE ANTS 



Staphylinidae. According to the faculties of the ants with which 

 they associate — some being able to see, and others only to feel — 

 they adopt a "tactual" or "visual" mimicry. Wasmann very rightly 

 observes that we must not assume that the ants mistake the beetles 

 for their own kind. We must look at the matter from another angle. 

 The more alien the form or appearance of the creatures encountered 

 by these ferocious insects, the more likely are they to fall upon them. 

 But anything that evokes familiar emotions tends to appease the 

 pugnacious ants : in which they are by no means peculiar ! 



Now, in the ants the most important sensory organs are the 

 antennae; and in these two senses are united, in a manner for 

 which we human beings can find no counterpart. With their an- 

 tennae, or rather with the hairs situated on the nerve-terminals of 

 the antennae, the ants are able to smell, though their sense of 

 smell is presumably something quite different from ours, which is 

 connected with our respiratory organs. But the ants also feel with 

 their antennae. When two ants meet, we see them at once feel one 

 another; that is the first thing they do. By touch they express their 

 need of food ; by touch they appeal for help. The ants' language 

 is dependent on these subtly evolved organs. 



If an ant encounters a beetle, the first thing it does is to feel the 

 latter with its antennae. And if with these antennae it feels an ant- 

 like body, with the thorax connected by a kind of stalk to the rounded 

 abdomen, and if this creature also emits a familiar scent, the ant 

 receives the impression that it is dealing with one of its own species ; 

 the beetle feels like one of its own brothers and sisters, and the ant 

 is not excited, but appeased. In the case of "sighted" ants, of course, 

 the colour of the insect must not disturb this reassuring impression. 

 If, moreover, the beetle possesses hairs which exude a sweet, intoxi- 

 cating juice, the aggressive humour of the ant is entirely subdued, 

 the pleasant emotions are intensified, and when the beetle in turn 

 strokes the head of the ant with its feelers the same instinct is 

 awakened as would be evoked by similar caresses from the antennae 

 of a sister-ant ; the deluded insect applies her mandibles to those 

 of this amiable comrade, and regurgitates food into its mouth. 



Thus, the Ecitophya, a beetle, is like a spider when seen from 

 above, but its profile is that of an ant, its body sinking in at the waist ; 

 its coloration resembles that of the equally large workers of Burchell's 

 Taoca, a sighted Migratory Ant, which this beetle accompanies on 

 its hunting expeditions. Another beetle (Labidominus), which ac- 

 companies a blind Migratory Ant, actually clinging to its hosts, in 



317 



