154 STATEMENTS OF PKEVIOUS AUTHOKS. 



These statements are most interesting ; and it is 

 much to be regretted that he has not given us in detail 

 the evidence on which they rest. In another passage, 

 indeed, he himself says,* ' If they have a language, I 

 cannot give too many proofs of it.' Unfortunately, 

 however, the chapter which he devotes to this impor- 

 tant subject is very short, and occupied with general 

 statements rather than with the accounts of the par- 

 ticular experiments and observations on which those 

 statements rest. Nor is there any serious attempt to 

 ascertain the nature, character, and capabilities of this 

 antennal language. Even if by motions of these organs 

 Ants and Bees can caress, can express love, fear, anger, 

 &c., it does not follow that they can narrate facts or 

 describe localities. 



The facts recorded by Kirby and Spence are not 

 more explicit. It is therefore disappointing to read in 

 the chapter especially devoted to this subject, that, as 

 regards the power possessed by Ants and Bees to com- 

 municate and receive information, ' it is only necessary 

 to refer you to the endless facts in proof, fiunished 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 narrator.' 



The first of these anecdotes refers to a Beetle 

 (Ateuehus jpilularius) which, having made for the 



' Loc. cit. p. 205. 



