COMMUNICATING AND OTHER ANTS 71 



all alike ? If analogy is any guide, then surely our 

 reason would lead us to suspect that as man differs 

 from his millions of fellow-men, as every sheep is 

 known to its shepherd, as in the multitude of busy 

 ants all the members are unlike, so this endless 

 difference may extend through every path of organic 

 nature, even through that most amazing profusion of 

 fertility, the dense locust swarm. How wonderful 

 is Nature to mould her creatures all unlike and collect 

 them into groups of great resemblance. That none 

 shall be identical may be as inexorable a law of 

 Nature as that like produces like. 



It is only the smaller workers that possess the 

 power of bringing information and calling out the 

 swarm. The soldiers rarely hunt about for prey ; 

 their duty is to remain indoors and await the news 

 brought by the smaller workers. Their great strength 

 is their most valuable asset. To the community they 

 are useful, not for discovering food, but for fighting 

 battles, directing the swarm, and dragging insects to 

 the nest. 



On two occasions I found a soldier hurrying about 

 outside the nest and gave it a dead insect. Now if 

 this had been an ordinary worker it would have 

 hastened to the nest with the news and the awaiting 

 swarm would have poured out through the gate. But 

 the soldier could not undertake that duty ; it remained 

 for ten minutes dragging vainly at the insect and 

 running round about it, but never attempted to call out 

 the swarm. The second time the dead insect was 

 rather bruised, and the soldier tore off a fragment and 

 carried it to the nest. Again and again it returned for 

 another fragment, but always singly. Its excited state 



