64 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



that are under it; and when you have done so, take 

 away the book, and leave them to themselves but a 

 quarter of an hour, and when you come again, you shall 

 find all those bodies carried away. Other trials we 

 make of their ingenuity, as this : Take a pewter dish, 

 and fill it half full of water, into which put a little gally- 

 pot filled with sugar, and the ants will presently find it 

 and come upon the table ; but when they perceive it en- 

 vironed with water, they try about the brims of the dish 

 where the gally-pot is nearest ; and there the most ven- 

 turous amongst them commits himself to the water, 

 though he be conscious how ill a swimmer he is, and is 

 drowned in the adventure : the next is not warned by 

 his example, but ventures too, and is alike drowned ; 

 and many more, so that there is a small foundation of 

 their bodies to venture ; and then they come faster than 

 ever, and so make a bridge of their own bodies*." 



The fact being certain, that ants impart their ideas 

 to each other, we are next led to inquire by what means 

 this is accomplished. It does not appear that, like the 

 bees, they emit any significative sounds ; their language, 

 therefore, must consist of signs or gestures, some of 

 which I shall now detail. In communicating their fear 

 or expressing their anger, they run from one to another 

 in a semicircle, and strike with their head or jaws the 

 trunk or abdomen of the ant to which they mean to give 

 information of any subject of alarm. But those remark- 

 able organs, their antennae, are the principal instruments 

 of their speech, if I may so call it, supplying the place 

 both of voice and words. When the military ants be- 

 fore alluded to go upon their expeditions, and are out of 

 8 Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 63. 



