90 PROGRESS AMONG ANTS. 



M. Lespes has given a short but interesting 

 account of some experiments made by him on the 

 relations existing between ants and their domestic 

 animals, from which it might be inferred that even 

 within the limits of a single species some communities 

 are more advanced than others. He states that speci- 

 mens of the curious blind beetle Claviger, which 

 always occurs with ants, when transferred from a nest 

 of Lasius 7iiger to another which kept none of these 

 domestic beetles, were invariably attacked and eaten. 

 From this he infers that the intelligence necessary to 

 keep Clavigers is not coextensive with the species, but 

 belongs only to certain communities and races, which, 

 so to say, are more advanced in civilisation than the 

 rest of the species. 



With reference to the statements of Lespes, I have 

 more than once transferred specimens of Platyarthrus 

 from one nest to another, and always found them 

 received amicably. I even placed specimens from 

 a nest of Lasius fiavus in one of Formica fusca 

 with the same result. I brought from the South of 

 France some specimens of a different species, as yet 

 undescribed, and put them in a nest of Formica fusca, 

 where they lived for some time, and brought up more 

 than one brood of young. These creatures, however, 

 occur in most ants' nests, while Clavigers are only 

 found in some. 



But whether there are differences in advancement 

 within the limits of the same species or not, there are 



