524 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



but had been punished for their presumption, and thfi 

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

 munity. 



Insects, in the third place, are able mutually to co?;?- 

 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 re- 

 fer 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 tribej 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 

 related to Kalm, the Swedish traveller, the following 

 fact. Having- placed a pot containing treacle in a closet 

 infested 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- 

 n^ained, which, after eating its fill, with some difficulty 

 found its way up the string, and thence reaching the 

 ceiling, escaped by the Mall 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 con- 

 tinued until the treacle was all consumed, one swarm 

 running up the string while another passed down*. It 



* Kalm's Travels in North jimerica, i. 239. Since the account of the 

 niised societies of ants, given in the early part of the present volume, (see 

 abxyve, p. 75 — 87,) was printed, 1 have met with a further confirmation of 



