100 ON THE HABITS OF ANTS. [LECT. 



published by the Linnean Society, I have discussed these 

 cases, and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that 

 some of them, at any rate, rest on a very doubtful 

 foundation. 



Yet I am far from denying that such instances do 

 exist. For example, in one of my nests of Formica fusca 

 was a poor ant which had come into the world without 

 antennae. Never having previously met with such a 

 case, I watched her with great interest, but she never 

 appeared to leave the nest. At length one day I found 

 her wandering about in an aimless sort of manner, and 

 apparently not knowing her way at all. After a while 

 she fell in with some specimens of L. flavus, who directly 

 attacked her. I at once set myself to separate them, but 

 whether owing to the wounds she had received from her 

 enemies, or to my rough, though well-meant, handling, 

 or to both, she was evidently sorely wounded, and lay 

 helpless on the ground. After some time, another 

 F. fusca from her nest came by. She examined the 

 poor sufferer carefully, then picked her up tenderly and 

 carried her away into the' nest. It would have been 

 difficult for any one who witnessed the scene to have 

 denied to this ant the possession of humane feelings. I 

 might quote various more or less similar cases ; never- 

 theless they are, according to my experience, exceptional. 

 Indeed, I have often been surprised that in certain 

 ff( emergencies ants render one another so little assistance. 

 The tenacity with which they retain their hold on an 

 enemy they have once seized is well known. M. Moc- 

 querys even assures us that the Indians of Brazil made 

 use of this quality in the case of wounds, causing an 

 ant to bite the two lips of the cut and thus bring them 



