PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ixv. 



Experiments made by Mr. H. Pie'ron pointed to recognition 

 amongst ants being caused by an olfactory sense in the antennae. 

 He anointed the ants of one community with an infusion of the 

 ants of a second communicy, by which latter they were then 

 treated as friends. He also found that an ant deprived of 

 antennae attacked friends and foes alike. A most careful 

 observer, Father Wassman, who has just published the results of 

 his work, denies intelligence to ants, though he speaks of the 

 marvellous sagacity of their animal instinct. He considers 

 Formica sanguined, a slave-making ant, the most gifted of the 

 European kinds, and records 2,000 nests of it in his neighbour- 

 hood, belonging to 410 communities. The tendency of slave- 

 making amongst ants is, however, to make them most helpless 

 beings, unable, in some cases, even to feed themselves. 



To turn to vertebrates, I may notice the extraordinary 

 decrease of alligators in the past 25 years in the neighbourhood 

 of Florida where they used to swarm they are now almost 

 rare, owing chiefly to the demand for their leather, and to the 

 fact that they have no friends to move for their protection as in 

 the case of Newfoundland seals, where protection has been 

 most successful. 



The number of known South African fresh water fishes is now 

 nearly 1,000, and Mr. Boulenger has shown what geological 

 lessons may be learnt from their distribution. For instance, the 

 great difference between the fishes of the Nile and Congo basins 

 points to a former separation, until quite recently, though these 

 systems now interlock. Fish do not vary much down the whole 

 length of the river, though the land animals at the mouth and 

 source may be quite distinct. From experiments lately made 

 it would appear that fish have no sense of hearing, loud ex- 

 plosions in water being unnoticed by them. 



The first report of the British North Sea Investigations Com- 

 mittee, which has been at work for three years, has been 

 published, and deals with the hydrography of the North Sea, 

 catches of fish, their habits, migrations, and other matters. Of 

 1,463 plaice marked and liberated, no less than 287 have been 



