CH. VII.] ANTS. 123 



mer companions, with whom they had held no com- 

 munication for four months ; they caressed them 

 with their antennae, and taking- them up in their 

 mandibles, led them to their own nest. Presently 

 others arrived in crowds and carried off the fugitives 

 in a similar manner ; and venturing into the artificial 

 ant-hill, in a few days caused such a desertion that 

 it was wholly depopulated. 



The above anecdote seems to prove that ants have 

 a language of dumb signs, of which the organs are 

 the antennae. As yet, the proofs of this antennal 

 language have been drawn from the affections of 

 these creatures, but more striking ones are derived 

 from their passions. For there are few animals 

 in which the passions assume a more deep and 

 threatening aspect ; they unite them in myriads for 

 the purposes of war and extermination. 



It would perhaps be too much to say, that the war- 

 fare which takes place among ants calls forth bright 

 traits of character, and occasions the exercise of 

 virtues, which under no other combination of cir- 

 cumstances could be exhibited. Yet Latreille, after 

 he had cut off the antennae of an ant, saw another 

 approach it as if compassionating the loss of a 

 member as dear to the owner as the pupil of our eye 

 to us, and after caressing the sufferer, pour into the 

 wound a drop of a liquid from its own mouth. 



The causes which give rise to these wars are, no 

 doubt, as important to them as those which urge 

 human monarchs to devastate, and human heroes to 

 struggle for victory. The ants will dispute furiously 

 about a few square feet of dust ; and such an object 

 is of equal magnitude and importance to them, as a 

 river, or a mountain, to an emperor. Sometimes a 

 straw, the carcass of a worm, a single grain of 

 wheat, will cause myriads to engage in deadly strife, 

 and leave the miserable inches of surrounding earth 

 thickly strewed with the pigmy dead. Sometimes 

 a nobler aim will cause them to defend to the utter- 



