1879.] on the Hahits of Ants. 170 



seems not altogether impossible that some of these tame insects may bo 

 kept as pets. 



I have already mentioned that while Lasius niger, the brown garden 

 ant, habitually makes use of the out-of-doors aphides, the yellow 

 meadow ant keeps the underground kind ; but within the limits of the 

 same species there appear to be considerable difi'erences. M. Lespes 

 even considered that some communities of L. niger were more advanced 

 in civilization than others of the same species. He assures us that if 

 he took specimens of their domestic beetles from one nest and placed 

 them in another, always be it understood of the same species, the 

 beetles were attacked and eaten. I have not had the opportunity of 

 repeating these experiments, but I have moved specimens of the blind 

 woodlouse, Platyarthrus, from one nest to another, and even from 

 nests of one species to those of another, and they were always amicably 

 received. But whether there are differences in advancement within 

 the limits of the same species or not, there are certainly considerable 

 differences between the different species, and one may almost fancy 

 that we can trace stages corresponding to the principal steps in the 

 history of human development. 



I do not now refer to slave-making ants, which represent an 

 abnormal, or perhaps only a temporary state of things, for slavery 

 seems to tend in ants as in men to the degradation of those by whom 

 it is adopted, and it is not impossible that the slave-making species will 

 eventually find themselves unable to compete with those which are more 

 self-dependent, and have reached a higher phase of civilization. But 

 putting these slave-making ants on one side, we find in the different 

 species of ants different conditions of life, curiously answering to the 

 earlier stages of human progress. For instance, some species, such as 

 Formica fusca, live principally on the produce of the chase ; for though 

 they feed j)artly on the honey-dew of aphides, they have not domesticated 

 their insects. These ants probably retain the habits once common to all 

 ants. They resemble the lower races of men, who subsist mainly by 

 hunting. Like them they frequent woods and wilds, live in compara- 

 tively small communities, and the instincts of collective action are but 

 little developed among them. They hunt singly, and their battles are 

 single combats, like those of Homeric heroes. Such species as Lashis 

 flavus represent a distinctly higher type of social life ; they show more 

 skill in architecture, may literally be said to have domesticated certain 

 species of aphides, and may be compared to the pastoral stage of 

 human progress — to the races which live on the produce of their 

 flocks and herds. Their communities are more numerous ; they act 

 much more in concert ; their battles are not mere single combats, but 

 they know how to act in combination. I am disposed to hazard the 

 conjecture that they will gradually exterminate the mere hunting 

 species, just as savages disappear before more advanced races. Lastly, 

 the agricultural nations may be comj^ared with the harvesting 

 ants. 



Thus there seem to be three principal types, offering a curious 



