CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 293 



carefully cleaning up all dirt and litter. You 

 may think I am romancing, but far more wonder- 

 ful facts reward such an observer as Sir John 

 Lubbock. Individuals in an ant city number 

 from half a million to a million, and, incredible 

 as it may seem, they all know each other. 

 Imagine anybody recognising every single face in 

 Tokyo ; but these ants, whose brain is smaller 

 than a pin's head, can surely do this ! All this, 

 for which I personally answer, discloses a new 

 sense in these minute creatures ; while experi- 

 ments made with the light-rays lying beyond the 

 red and violet, totally invisible to us, prove clearly 

 that many small living things are quite as per- 

 fectly aware of those hidden beams as the magnetic 

 needle is sensitive to the polar current which we 

 cannot feel. No doubt to the eye of the dragon 

 fly, or of the Dytiscus beetle, altogether another 

 world than ours is represented by the ordinary 

 face of nature, near and far. These facts carry 

 the thoughts of the educated European as far 

 downwards into the lower regions of biology as 

 the star photographs lift it upwards in the celestial 

 regions. And everywhere alike he now sees at 

 work the same grand principle of evolution." 



Later in the year Sir John had a short letter 

 of much suggestive interest from Professor Was- 

 mann, the great German entomologist, to whom 

 he had sent a copy of The Senses of Animals. 



9-5-90. 



Dear Sir — I have received yesterday your letter 

 and the book and feel very much obliged for your kind- 

 ness. Although I have studied already the German 

 translation of your interesting book, I am nevertheless 

 very glad to possess the original from yourself. 



