INVERTEBEATA, CRTPTOGAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 775 



pairs (in other insects on tlie first also) ; of these one persists in the 

 first pair as the sjiur above mentioned, the other becomes rudimentary. 

 No muscles for moving the spur have been found, and its function is 

 that of cleaning the tongue, and perhaps the antennae also. These 

 conclusions were derived from a study of many families of the 

 order. 



Honey-hearing Ants. — At p. 242 we gave a short account * of 

 the Eev. Dr. McCook's observations on some of these ants from 

 Colorado, which with the head and thorax of a small ant have all the 

 posterior portion of the body distended into a reservoir of honey, the 

 size of a large pea and of a rich translucent amber hue. The 

 creatures cling to the rough roof of the chambers with their feet, 

 the honey-bag hanging downwards. Not only is the abdomen con- 

 verted into a receptacle for honey, but the whole internal economy 

 of the body is transformed for this purj^ose ; all the organs of the 

 abdomen having quite disappeared, and there remains only a thin 

 transparent skin. Dr. McCook was able to discover that the working 

 ants, returning from their outdoor foraging with their bodies distended 

 with the honey they had harvested, eject it from their own mouths 

 into those of the honey-bearers, whose bodies thus become distended 

 with it. The honey-bearer seemed to slightly contract the muscles 

 of the abdominal skin, forcing from its mouth minute globules of 

 honey ; these clung to the bail's of the under lij) and were eagerly 

 lapped up by the hungry ants waiting to be fed. It is probable, 

 however, that the supplies are principally intended as winter-stores 

 for the worlcers, for feeding the larva), or for the queen. 



Since the period when the above observations were made. 

 Dr. McCook has had under his constant sui^ervision an artificial 

 formicary of the ants, and has made some fm-ther interesting com- 

 munications in regard to them.t The most striking points relate to 

 two particulars, one bearing on the sympathy, or spirit of beneficence, 

 of the ants ; the other relating to tlieir anatomy. 



Sir John Lubbock has shown that while ants were full of hostility 

 against individual foes, they showed no sympathy for friends in 

 trouble. The comfort of the poor honey-bearers, for instance, whilo 

 the workers were excavating, was utterly ignored. They lay help- 

 lessly where they had been dropped, and were treated by the other ants 

 as if they had been so many lifeless impediments to their work. 

 Instead of making a detour ai-ound tlicm, the Avorkers went straight 

 forward, clambering over any that lay in their path, and even 

 dropping the i)ellets of earth which they brought out from tho 

 excavations upon and around them, until some of the houcy-bearera 

 were almost buried. There seemed hero a lack both of sympathy and 

 of intelligence. 



The honey-bearers are not, however, quite helpless; they liavo 

 tho full use of their legs, though their movements are necessarily 

 made at a disadvantage, from the angle into which tho head and 

 thorax aro thrown by the swollen condition of the abdomen ; yet they 



* See also ' Journ. of Si-ioncc,' ii. (1880) p. 87. t Ibid., p. 430. 



