Turner, Homing of Ants. 403 



Yet, if they cannot hear, it is hard to understand why so many 

 ants are provided with organs for producing sound. David 

 Sharp ('93) has proved conclusively that the Dorylidae, the Pon- 

 eridse and the Myrmicidae possess stridulating organs, each con- 

 sisting of a file on the anterior portion of the tergum of the third 

 abdominal somite, which file is rubbed against the roughened 

 underside of the second abdominal ring. He did not find any 

 such organ in either the Camponotidae nor the Dolichoderidae and 

 he was doubtful of its presence in the Cryptoceridae. Landois 

 ('67) had seen such an organ about fifty years ago in Ponera. 



Sharp's work was strictly morphological, but physiological 

 evidence that ants can make audible sounds is furnished by 

 Wroughton ('92), FoREL (Foumiis de la Suisse), Wasmann 

 ('91) and Janet ('94), each of whom has heard sounds produced 

 by ants. Wroughton listened to Cremastogaster rogenhoferi, 

 FoREL to Camponotus ligniperdus, Janet to Myrmica rubra L. 

 and Tetramorium caespitum L. and Wasmann to Myrmica rugi- 

 nodis. 



So far as I have been able to ascertain, Wasmann ('91) is the 

 only European who has produced any experimental evidence 

 against the negative results of Huber, Forel and Lubbock. 

 He experimented with Formica rufa, which was confined in a 

 Lubbock nest, the floor of which was covered with one mm. of 

 dirt. Whenever he scratched on the glass with a needle, he found 

 that the ants made responsive movements which demonstrated 

 they were affected by the stimulus. Experience has taught me 

 that the slightest touch upon any portion of my Janet nests is 

 almost certain to be responded to by some movement of the ants 

 within. It is to be regretted that Wasmann did not produce his 

 sounds in some other way than by scratching on the nest; for, 

 since there is a possibility that the scratching produced a slight 

 tremor, a fair critic is bound to admit that the positive evidence 

 furnished by this experiment is not of sufficient weight to offset 

 the negative results of the three men mentioned above. 



About eight years ago an American, Le Roy D. Weld ('99) 

 performed a carefully planned series of experiments, which seem 

 to prove that Cremasgaster lineolata, Lasius Americanus and 

 Aphaenogaster sp. can hear sounds that are audible to man. 

 Some of these experiments were conducted under conditions that 

 apparently precluded the possibility of jars from the sounding 

 body reaching the nest by any other medium than the air. The 



