88 
POPULAR SCIElirCE NEWS. 
[June, 1891. 
Anthropological School, and published by M. F. 
Alcan, which contains very interesting documents 
and notices. M. de Mortillefs paper concerns the 
use of poisons by prehistoric man. Is it likely, 
he asks, that our savage ancestors, like the pres- 
ent savage tribes, had discovered the powerful 
properties of many vegetable juices, and used them 
for the purposes of war or hunting? M. de Mor- 
tillet replies in the afflrmative. He considers the 
notches and various en creux (hollow) ornaments 
which are generally to be found on the flint or 
horn arrow-heads, as places which were filled 
with some poisonous matter or other. In every 
country, however wild and uncultivated, poisons 
are plentiful, and under our temperate climates 
any amount of toxic fluids may be had from 
plants such as digitalis, hyoscyamus, and many 
others. It is even to be presumed that most 
plants will, when properly studied, yield violent 
and' yet unknown poisons. Prehistoric man 
might have used other poisons yet, such as that 
yielded by many snakes — the viper, for instance. 
M. de Mortillet thinks also that in many cases 
organic matters — especially animal — in putrefac- 
tion have been similarly used. They yield violent 
poisons, and septicaemia is generally induced, 
through blood-poisoning, by the infectious mi- 
crobes they contain. Septicjcmic poison is yet 
used in some islands of the Pacific, and in the 
North by some Eskimos who hunt the whale with 
arrows poisoned by dipping them in putrefied ani- 
mal matter. 
One poison suggests another! I will merely 
refer to the recent discovery by Prof .P. Giacosa, 
of Turin, of a curious liquid expelled by the larva 
of a beetle, the Agelastica alni, which smells very 
strongly of cyanhydric acid, and seems likely to 
protect the larva from carnivorous attempts of 
unfriendly passers-bj'. M. Giacosa has not yet 
been able to ascertain the exact nature of the 
substance. 
To pass from poison to the Scotch College 
would require a vast amount of rhetoric, if the 
law of transitions was to be observed; so I will 
merely jump over without regard to literary exac- 
tions. The Comite de Patronage des Etudiants 
Etrangers is doing a large amount of good work 
here, and is patronizing foreign students in a 
manner which seems very satisfactory to them. 
Scotch, English, Americans, Greeks, Roumanians, 
are guided and helped In their progress, and every 
foreign student who applies to the committee is 
sure to receive attention. A few days ago the 
nucleus of Scotch students present in Paris gath- 
ered in a friendly dinner offered to some of their 
patrons, and expressed their satisfaction. A 
scheme is on foot to i;eestablish the old College des 
Ecossais of some centuries ago, aad some enter- 
prising persons think of buying the old house 
which in the last instance was the resort of the 
college, and restoring it to its former destination. 
It would be used as lodgings for all the Scotch 
students coming to Paris to achieve their studies, 
whether medical, scientific, artistic, or literary; 
and Professor Geddes, who is at khe head of the 
movement, is an enterprising man enough to in- 
sure the success of the plan. H. 
Paris, April 25, 1891. 
[Original in Popular Science News.] 
ANT LIFE IN HONOLULU. 
BY RUTH WARD. 
Of the thousands who frequent the parks and 
squares of Honolulu, passing to and fro in endless 
succession, intent on business or pleasure ; of the 
scores of tourists who lounge on the grass under 
the palms or the wide-spreading algerabas, how 
many ever give a passing thought to the inhab- 
itants around them who dwell there, some as per- 
manent residents, others like the human beings 
around them — only there for a season, or resting 
for a few days on their way to a new home? 
There is more ant life in Honolulu than most 
people are aware of. Little companies are at 
work all the long, hot summer days, building 
their homes and rearing their young, caring noth- 
ing for and paying no attention to the outer 
world. Astronomy has made the mass of man- 
kind familiar with the conception of the world 
overhead; but few realize the existence of the 
worlds at our feet, — worlds which we leave as 
completely alone as if we belonged to another 
planet; worlds that our clocks do not regulate; 
worlds full of chatter, which is dead silence to 
us, but across which our loudest cannon roar 
breaks not in the faintest whisper; seemingly 
dumb worlds, yet possessed of a kind of unknown 
language ; worlds full of inexplicable strangeness 
and governed by mental laws to which our own 
give us not the faintest clue. True, the lower 
life completely shuts out the higher, but the 
higher can' penetrate the threshold of the lower 
only with the greatest difficulty. Our keys are 
too large for the locks, and our hands are too 
clumsy to open the tiny apartments into which 
we would enter. Only by the sense of sight can 
we enter these worlds of sentient life. We stand 
as spectators, wondering what is the meaning of 
all this show that is so meaningless to us. Miche- 
let tells us that if we would find out if insects 
have a physiognomy, we must look into their 
averted faces, and that nearly always we can 
detect some reflection of the intelligence within — 
some gleam of the inner existence — some answer- 
ing look. Turn the ant on its back, and look 
straight in its face, with its mandibles moving 
horizontally, its vibrating and mobile antennae all 
fixed in a horny case, and yon find yourself con- 
fronted with a sort of mask rather than a living 
physiognomy. In that mailed insect face there is 
no expression — no windows through which can be 
discerned a light from the insect world. What- 
ever knowledge is gained must be gained by pa- 
tient observation, and all inferences must be veri- 
fied by experiments that are cai-efully repeated. 
To this patient observation of this lowest life and 
experimental research with regard to the laws and 
limitation, the great modern doctrine of evolution 
has given an additional incentive. Although we 
have learned a great deal of the inner life of these 
insects, many things still perplex us in regard to 
tlieir inner nature; and we shall yet live, no 
doubt, to see metaphysicians solve nature's most 
difficult problem simply by studying the animal 
life, and thus prove Cuvler's theory to be a cor- 
rect one. 
The order and industry of the ant have been 
cited as an example for man from the earliest 
ages. That some are winged among swarms of 
their wingless fellows is a fact that could not 
escape the notice of the most careless observer; 
but so little has mankind been interested in this 
world of sentient life so closely imitating our 
own, that it was not till the seventeenth century 
that a Dutch naturalist first ascertained that the 
winged ants were males and females, and that the 
others were sterile females. It almost seems that 
suppressed instincts of sex in nature supply the 
greatest amount of force or potential energy. 
The organs of reproduction in these sterile fe- 
males remain in a rudimentary state. Some of 
these, however, prove fertile; but these, strange 
to say, only produce males. The queen is proba- 
bly fed on different food, as in the case of bees, 
but I have found no absolute proof of the fact. 
In my nests there have been raised hundreds of 
ants, but not one queen — due, I suppose, to the 
fact that I furnished them only one kind of diet. 
Upon the sterile females devolves the work of 
building, repairing, excavating, and sometimes 
even fighting for the others. Some, like the For- 
mica rufa, build structures of all kinds of alien 
materials, and by an indescribable art dovetail 
little pieces of wood in to make secure partitions. 
Others, like the mason ant, build of tiny bricks 
made from earth and rain-water alone ; while the 1 
mining ants make use of a flat stone, into which 
they excavate subterranean galleries and cham- ' 
bers. Others build cities in the hearts of trees, 
which consist of numberless stories separated by 
extremely thin ceilings, supported sometimes by 
slender partitions, and sometimes by concentric 
rows of slender pillars, the whole imbued with 
a black tint, which is supposed to be a sort of 
strengthening fluid, but by what agency it is pro- 
duced is not known. For all this work they have 
no other chisel or rule than their teeth and their 
antennae, and no trowel except their fore feet, 
with which they affix and consolidate the moist- 
ened earth. The Brazilian Accodonia cephalotes, a 
species of which I found in Honolulu, use the 
leaves of trees in the construction of their nests. 
One day as I was passing through Thomas Square 
I noticed the leaves of an algeraba falling in a 
shower. As the day was perfectly calm, I began 
to Investigate, and found several companies of 
ants diligently sawing at the footstalk of the 
leaves, while others seized the leaves as they fell 
and cut them into circular pieces. As they 
trudged to tlieir homes bearing the fruits of their 
toil, they looked like animated leaves moving . 
along ; and no doubt it is from this appearance 
that they obtained the name of parasol ants. 
With these leaves interposed between layers of 
kneaded earth they "felt" the domes of their 
nests, some of which are three feet in heiglit, thus 
rendering them impervious to even the tropical 
rains. One cannot but admire their ingenuity in 
perceiving that no layer of earth, however well 
kneaded, can withstand a tropical downpour. 
The architectural labors of the ant, perfect 
though they may be, are but a small part of their 
life-work; their chief labors are expended upon 
the care of their young. The eggs are extremely 
small when first laid, but, not being enclosed in a 
rigid envelope, they have the power of growth 
when placed in contact with the air. The work- 
ers collect the eggs .and carry them from place to 
place in the nest to secure the right temperature. 
The insects which issue from these eggs are help- 
less creatures, being only able to raise their heads 
a little and receive the food which their devoted 
nurses supply them with in true bird fashion. 
Each day they are carried into the open air for a 
sun bath, but when the rays become too powerful, 
or the air becomes damp, they are carefully car- 
ried back again, the action of each day depending 
entirely upon atmospheric changes. When the 
insect has reached its maturity it spins a cocoon, 
and inside of this shroud passes into pnp,T. For 
some few days it continues to move, but gradually 
becomes motionless, and here gains strength and 
consistence, and changes its color from pure white 
to a pale yellow, and then to a black or brown, 
according to its species. Wlien the insect is per- 
fect and ready to come forth, it is unlike most in- 
sects — unable to liberate itself from Its silken 
grave-clothes. This the workers proceed to • do 
with their teeth, using them in the same way as 
we would use a pair of scissors. This operation 
