518 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



and the dear-bought lesson was not lost on the rest of 

 the community. 



Insects, in the third place, are able mutually to com- 

 municate and receive information^ which, in whatever way 

 effected, would be impracticable if they were devoid of 

 reason. Under this head it is only necessary to refer 

 you to the endless facts in proof, furnished by almost 

 every page of my letters on the history of ants and of the 

 hive-bee. I shall therefore but detain you for a moment 

 with an additional anecdote or two, especially with one 

 respecting the former tribe, which is valuable from the 

 celebrity of the relater. 



Dr. Franklin was of opinion that ants could commu- 

 nicate their ideas to each other; in proof of which he re- 

 lated to Kalm, the Swedish traveller, the following fact. 

 Having placed a pot containing treacle in a closet in- 

 fested with ants, these insects found their way into it, 

 and were feasting very heartily when he discovered 

 them. He then shook them out and suspended the pot 

 by a string from the ceiling. By chance one ant re- 

 mained, which, after eating its fill, with some difficulty 

 found its way up the string, and thence reaching the 

 ceiling, escaped by the wall to its nest. In less than 

 half an hour a great company of ants sallied out of their 

 hole, climbed the ceiling, crept along the string into the 

 pot, and began to eat again. This they continued until 

 the treacle was all consumed, one swarm running up the 

 string while another passed down *. It seems indispu- 

 table that the one ant had in this instance conveyed 



* Kalm's Travels in A^orfk America, i. 239. 



