130 
POPTJLAE SCIENCE NEWS. 
[September, 1891. 
bility of any communication between the two na- 
tions. 
The more we learn of the life and habits of the 
ancient Egyptians from these inscriptions and 
writings, the more they appear to us like tlie peo- 
ple of our own day, and tlie shorter seems tlie 
thousands of years wliicli separate them from us 
in point of time. King Antef carved the name 
and image of his favorite dog on his tombstone, 
just as is occasionally done by some foolish people 
of our own times ; and, although their very an- 
tiquity has surrounded the ancient Egyptians 
with an air of mysticism, it is probable that in 
their actual life they differed but little from the 
oriental races of the present day. Human nature 
changes but slowly, and the monuments and writ- 
ings of kings and priests give us but little insight 
into the every day thoughts and actions of the 
masses of the people. 
<♦> 
[Original In Popular SCDsaiCE News.] 
ANTS. 
BY RUTH WARD KAHN. 
Astronomy has made us all familiar with the 
conception of the world over our heads. We no 
longer speculate with Epicurus and Anaxagoras 
whether the sun may be as large as a quoit, or 
even as large as Peloponnesus. We are satisfied 
that the greater and the lesser lights are worlds, 
some of them greatly exceeding our own in mag- 
nitude. 
In a little poem of Dante Rossetti's, he describes 
a mood of violent grief in which, sitting with his 
head bowed between his knees, he unconsciously 
eyes the wood spurge growing at his feet, till 
from those terrible moments he carries away the 
one trivial fact, cut into his brain for all time, 
that "the wood spurge has a cup of three." In 
some such mood of troubled thought, flung, per- 
haps full length on the turf, have we not as un- 
consciously and intently watched a little ant, 
trudging across our prostrate foi-m, intent upon 
its glorious polity : a creature to which we, with 
oui- great spiritual world of thought and emotion 
and will, have no existence except as a sudden 
and inconvenient upheavel of parti-colored earth 
to be scaled, of unknown geological formation, 
but wholly worthless as having no bearing upon 
the one great end of their life — the care of larva;. 
If we hold with Mr. Wallace that the chief dif- 
ference between man and the lower animals is 
that of kind and not of degree, — that man is pos- 
sessed of an intelligent will that appoints its own 
ends, of a conscience that imposes upon him a 
"categorical imperative," of spiritual faculties 
that apprehend and worship the invisible, — yet 
we must admit that his lower animal nature, 
which forms, as it were, the platform of the spir- 
itual, is built up of lower organisms. 
If we hold with Professor Allman that thought, 
will, and conscience, though only manifesting 
themselves through the medium of cerebral pro- 
toplasm, are not its properties any more than the 
invisible earth elements which lie beyond the vio- 
let are the property of the medium, which, by 
altering their refrangibility, makes them its own, 
— then the study of the exact nature and proper- 
ties of the transmitting medium is equally neces- 
sary. Indeed, the whole position can only be 
finally established of defining experimentally the 
necessary limitation of the medium, and proving 
the inefticiency of the lower data to account with 
the higher. 
It is these considerations of the wider issues 
that give such a peculiar interest to the patient 
observattons which have recently been brought to 
bear upon the habits of the social insects, es- 
pecially of ants, which, living in communities, 
present so many of the conditions of human life, 
and the development of the "tribal self" from 
these conditions, to which Professor Clifibrd at- 
tributed the genesis of moral sense. 
In order to pass in review these interesting 
observations and bring out their significance, I 
must go over ground which is doubtless familiar 
to most of ray readers. 
The winged ants, which often excite surprise, 
are simply the virgin queens and the males. They 
are entirely dependent upon the workers, and are 
reared in the same nest. September is the month 
usually selected for the marriage season, and in 
the early twilight of a warm day the air will 
be dark with the winged lovers. After the wed- 
ding trip the female tears off her wings, — partly 
by pulling, but mostly by contortions of her 
body, — for her life under ground would render 
wings not only unnecessary, but cumbersome; 
while the male is not exposed to the danger of 
being eaten by his cannibal spouse, as among 
spiders, nor to be set upon and assassinated by 
infuriated spinsters, as among bees, but drags out 
a precarious existence for a few days, and then 
either dies or is devoured by insectivorous insects. 
There is reason to believe that some females are 
fertilized before leaving the nest. I have observed 
flights of the common Formica rufa^ in which the 
females flew away solitary and to great distances 
before they descended. In such cases it is certain 
that they were fertilized before their flight. 
When a fertilized queen starts a colony it pro- 
ceeds much in this way : When a shaft has been 
sunk deep enough to insure safety, or a sheltered 
position secured underneath the trunk of a tree or 
a stone, the queen in due time deposits her first 
eggs, which are carefully reared and nourished. 
The first brood consists wholly of workers, and 
numbers between twenty-five and forty in some 
species, but is smaller in others. The mother ant 
seeks food for herself and her young till the 
initial brood are matured, when they take up the 
burden of life, supply the rapidly increasing fam- 
ily with food, as well as the mother ant, enlarge 
the quarters, share in the necessary duties, and, 
in short, become the real workers of the nest 
before they are scarcely out of the shell. The 
mother ant is seldom allowed to peer beyond her 
dark quarters, and then only in company with her 
body guard. She is fed and cared for by the 
workers, and she in turn assists them in the rear- 
ing of the young, and has even been known to 
give her strength for the extension of the formi- 
cary grounds. Several queens often exist in one 
nest, and I have seen workers drag newly fer- 
tilized queens into a formicary to enlarge their 
resources. As needs be, the quantity of eggs laid 
is very great, for the loss of life in the ranks of 
the workers is very large ; few survive the season 
of their hatching, although queens have been 
known to live eight years (Lubbock). 
The ant life has four well-marked periods : 
First, the egg ; second, the grub or larva ; third, 
the chrysalis or pupa; fourth, the imago or per- 
fect insect. The eggs are small, ovate, yellowish 
white objects, which hatch in about fifteen to 
thirty days. The larviB are small legless grubs, 
quite large at the apex of the abdomen, and taper- 
ing towards the head. Both eggs and pupa; are 
incessantly watched and tended, licked and fed, 
and carried to a place of safety in time of danger. 
The larva; are ingeniously sorted as regards age 
and size, and are never mixed. The larva period 
generally extends through a month, altliough 
often much longer, and in most species when the 
larva; pass into pupa; they spin a cocoon of whit i 
or straw color, looking much like a shining peli 
ble. Other larvre do not spin a cocoon, ))ut spcin 
the pupal state naked. AVhen they mature thu 
are carefully assisted from their shells by thi, 
workers, which also assist in unfolding anc 
smoothing out the legs. The whole life of tin 
formicary centers uijon the young, which pro\i 
they have reached a degree of civilization uii 
known even in some forms of higher life. 
It is curious that, notwithstanding the labor o 
so many excellent observers, and though anti 
swarm in every field and wood, we should find S( ■ 
much difliculty in the history of these insects, iim 
that so much obscurity should rest upon some n 
their habits. Forel and Ebrard, after repeatec 
observations, maintain that in no single instanoi 
has an isolated female been known to bring In 
young to maturity. This is in direct contraillr 
tion to Lubbock's theory, who repeatedly tiin 
introducing a new fertile queen into another ins 
of Lasius flavus, and always with the result tlui 
the workers became very excited and killed Ini 
even though in one case the nest was withoul , 
queen. Of the other kinds, he isolated two pair '. 
of Myrmica ruginodis, and, though the males died 
the queens lived and brought their offspring l> 
perfection; and nearly a year after their captix 
ity. Sir John Lubbock watched the first youiii 
workers carrying the larva; about, thereby prn\ 
ing the accuracy of Huber's statement, with sum 
species at least. In spite of this convincing testi 
mony, Lepeletier St. Fargeau is of the opiuioi 
that the nests originate with a solitary queen, :i 
was first given. 
The ants indigenous to Leadville, besides feiil 
ing on small flies, insects, and caterpillars, — tli' 
carcasses of which they may be seen dragging 1( 
their nests, — show the greatest avidity for swrc 
liquids. They are capable of absorbing Lir^i 
quantities, which they disgorge into the moutli 
of their companions. lu winter time, when tli. 
ants are nearly toi-pid and do not require mini 
nourishment, two or three ants told off as Uir 
agers are suiflcient to provide for the whole m-i 
We all know how ants keep their herds in iln 
shape of aphides, or ant-cows, which supply tlini 
witli the sweet liquid they exude. I have oliii 
observed an ant gently stroking the back of ai 
aphide with its antenna; to coax it to give dii\M 
its sweet fluid, much in the same way as a daii v 
maid would induce a cow to give down its mill 
by a gentle manipulation of its udders. Sunn 
species, principally the .masons and miners, ic 
move their aphides to plants in the immedinti 
vicinity of their nest, or even introduce them inli 
the ant home. In the interior of most nests i^ 
also found the small blind beetle, (Clavir/tr) 
ghstening, and of a uniform red, its mouth of -^^ 
singular a conformation that it is incapable i>l 
feeding itself. The ants carefully feed these pooi 
dependent creatures, and in turn lick the sweet 
liquid which they secrete and exude. These littU 
Coleoptera are only found in the nests of sone 
species; when introduced into the nests of otln i- 
they excite great bewilderment, and, after having 
been carefully turned over and examined, are 
killed in a short time as a useless commodity. 
Another active species of Coleoptera, of the family 
Staphylini, is also fotmd in ant nests. I have dis- 
covered one in the nest of Formica rufa in the Jew-: 
ish cemetery in Leadville. Furnished with wings, 
it does not remain in the nest, but is forced to re- , 
turn thither by the strange incapacity to feed; 
itself. Like the Clavirjer, it repays its kind nurses 
by the sweet liquid it exudes, and which is re- 
tained by a tuft of hair on either side of the abdo- 
