PEUFECt SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 65 



to each other, we are next led to inquire by what 

 means this is accomplished. It does not appear that, 

 like the bees, they emit any significative sounds; their 

 language, therefore, must consist of signs or gestures, 

 some of which I shall now detail. In communicating 

 their fear or expressing their anger, they run from one 

 to another in a semicircle, and strike with their head 

 or jaws the trunk or abdomen of the ant to which they 

 mean to give information of any subject of alarm. But 

 those remarkable organs, their antennae, are the prin- 

 cipal instruments of their speech, if I may so call it, 

 supplying the place both of voice and words. When 

 the military ants before alluded to go upon their ex- 

 peditions, and are out of the formicary, previously to 

 setting off, they touch each other on the trunk with 

 their antennae and forehead ; — this is the signal for 

 marching ; for, as soon as any one has received it, he 

 is immediately in motion. When they have any disco- 

 very to communicate, they strike with them those that 

 they meet in a particularly impressive manner. — If a 

 hungry ant wants to be fed, it touches with its two an- 

 tenhaf, moving them very rapidly, those of the indivi- 

 dual from which it expects its meal : — and not only ants 

 understand this language, but even Aphides and Cocci, 

 which are the milch kine of our little pismires, do the 

 same, and will yield them their saccharine fluid at the 

 touch of these imperative organs. The helpless larvae 

 also of the ants are informed by the same means when 

 they may open their mouths to receive their food. 



Next to their language, and scarcely different from 

 it, are the modes by which they express their affections 

 and aversions. Whether ants, with man and some of 



VOL. II. 7 



