386 1HE INSECT WORLD. 



The tranquil inhabitants of these subterranean republics are bound 

 together by mutual affection in a devoted fraternity, which makes 

 them ever ready to assist each other. They all help one another as 

 much as they can. If an ant is tired, a comrade carries it on its 

 back. Those which are so absorbed with their work that they have 

 no time to think of their food, are fed by their companions. When 

 an ant is wounded, the first one who meets it renders it assistance, 

 and carries it home. Latreille having torn the antennae from an ant, 

 saw another approach the poor wounded one, and pour, with its 

 tongue, a few drops of a yellow liquid on the bleeding wound. 



Huber the younger one day took an ant's nest to populate one ot 

 those glass contrivances which he used for making his observations, 

 and which consisted of a sort of glass bell placed over the nest. Our 

 naturalist set at liberty one part of the ants, which fixed themselves at 

 the foot of a neighbouring chestnut tree. The rest were kept during 

 four months in the apparatus, and at the end of this time Huber 

 moved the whole into the garden, and a few ants managed to escape. 

 Having met their old companions, who still lived at the foot of the 

 chestnut tree, they recognised them. They were seen, in fact, all of 

 them, to gesticulate, to caress each other mutually with their antennae, 

 to take each other by the mandibles, as if to embrace in token of joy, 

 and they then re-entered together the nest at the foot of the chestnut 

 tree. Very soon they came in a crowd to look for the other ants under 

 the bell, and in a few hours our observer's apparatus was completely 

 evacuated by its prisoners. When an ant has discovered any rich 

 prey, far from enjoying it alone, like a gourmand, it invites all its 

 companions to the feast. Community of goods and interests exists 

 amongst all the members of this model society. It is the practical 

 realisation of the dream formed by certain philosophers of our day, 

 who were only able to conceive the idea, the possibility, the project 

 of such a community of goods and interests, which is among ants 

 a reality. 



How do these insects manage to make themselves understood in 

 such various ways, asking for help, giving advice, giving invitations ? 

 They must have a language of their own, or else they must communi- 

 cate their impressions by the play of their antennae. 



When an ant is hungry, and does not wish to disturb itself from 

 its work, it tells a foraging ant as it passes, by touching it with its 

 antennae ; the latter approaches it immediately, and presents it, on 

 the end of its tongue, some juice it has disgorged for this purpose. 

 The antennae, then, are used by the ants for the purpose of making 

 themselves understood by each other. Dr. Ebrard, who studied these 



