42 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



bewildering privilege. The prevailing opinion of 

 entomologists now was that each facet took in one 

 point of the field of view, so that, in fact, they 

 saw a sort of mosaic. Bnt even this theory was 

 open to serious objections, and the whole question 

 was full of difficulty, and one of many still remaining 

 to be solved. From experiments he had made, he 

 concluded that ants were capable of distinguishing 

 between different colours. He had gone beyond, 

 and had attempted to determine how far their limits 

 of vision were the same as ours. These attempts 

 had satisfied him that ants perceived rays at the 

 violet end of the spectrum which to our eyes were 

 quite invisible. Nevertheless, the sight of ants did 

 not seem to be very good. Much of what had 

 been said as to the powers of communication 

 possessed by bees and ants depended on the fact 

 that if one of them in the course of her rambles 

 had discovered a supply of food a number of 

 others soon found their way to the store. This, 

 however, did not necessarily imply any p ower of 

 describing localities. If the bees or the ants merely 

 followed their more fortunate companion, or if they 

 hunted her by scent, the matter was comparatively 

 simple. If, on the contrary, the others had the 

 route described to them the case became very 

 different. Under ordinary circumstances, if an ant 

 discovered a stock of food she carried as much as 

 possible away to the nest and then returned for more, 

 accompanied generally by several friends. On their 

 return these brought others, and in this way a string 



