PHILOSOPHIC ants: 



A BIOLOGIC FANTASY ^ 



"Incomprehensibility; that's what I say." — Lewis Carroll 

 {amended) . 



ACCORDING to a recent study by A4r. Shapley 

 (Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Philadelphia, vol. vi, 

 p. 204), the normal rate of progression of ants 

 — or at least of the species of ant which he studied — 

 is a function of temperature. For each rise of ten 

 degrees centigrade, the ants go about double as fast. 

 So complete is the dependence that the ants may be 

 employed as a thermometer, measurement of their 

 rate of locomotion giving the temperature to within 

 one degree centigrade. 



******* 



The simple consequence — easy of apprehension by 

 us, but infinite puzzlement to ants — is that on a warm 

 day an ant will get through a task four or five times 

 as heavy as she will on a cold one. She does more, 

 thinks more, lives more: more Bergsonian duration 

 is hers. 



There was a time, we learn in the myrmecine an- 



1 Read before the Heretics Club, Cambridge, May 1922. 



177 



