II. 



Some Recent Researches on the Habits of 

 Ants, Wasps, and Bees. 



T)Y most zoologists, the aculeate or sting-bearing Hymenoptera 

 ^ are accorded the highest place among insects ; a position 

 warranted not only by the extreme specialisation of their structure 

 and development, but also by the perfection of their family and 

 social instincts, which, from ancient times, have been held up for the 

 admiration and imitation of mankind. Those families of the group 

 in which the social life has been most completely adopted — the ants, 

 and the social wasps and bees— are probably better known to persons 

 not zoologists than are any other insects. Interest in their habits 

 and economy has been greatly aroused by Sir J. Lubbock's 

 well-known work (i), though the leading facts of these insect- 

 commonwealths were long ago carefully observed by Huber. 



The orderly and purposeful collective work of ants has often led 

 observers to speculate upon the means of communication between the 

 insects, and they have been believed to converse with each other by 

 motions and contact of their antennae. Experiments on this subject 

 must be familiar to readers of Lubbock's book. He also investigated 

 the ability of ants to make sounds and to hear. Although supposed 

 organs of hearing have been found in the antennae and tibiae of ants, 

 no impression could be produced upon the insects by any sound 

 audible to human ears. Lubbock supposed, therefore, that they can 

 only appreciate notes of a pitch too high to be heard by us. He 

 suggested that certain ribbed areas on the abdominal segments of 

 various species might be organs for producing sound, but he was 

 unable to detect any sounds which these may have made. 



These sound-producing areas have recently been specially studied 

 by Dr. Sharp (2). He finds that some of the structures observed by 

 Sir J. Lubbock and others are nothing but the ordinary sculpture of 

 the surface of the segments. In other cases, however, he has no 

 doubt that stridulating organs really exist. At the middle of the 

 base of the dorsal surface of the third abdominal segment, in most 

 species of the Myrmicides and Ponerides examined, he finds a special 

 area traversed by excessively fine lines. In the Ponerides these are 

 modified from the ordinary sculpture of the segment which, on these 



