PERFECT SOCIETIES OF IXSECTS. 323 



proof of this : as he has told his tale in a lively and interesting manner, I 

 shall give it nearly in his own words. 



" The next of these moving little animals are ants or pismires, and these 

 are but of a small size, but great in industry ; and that which gives them 

 means to attain to this end is, they have all one soul. If I should say 

 they are here or there, I should do them wrong, for they are everywhere ; 

 under ground, where any hollow or loose earth is ; amongst the roots of 

 trees ; upon the bodies, branches, leaves, and fruit of all trees ; in all places 

 without the houses and within ; upon the sides, walls, windows, and roofs 

 without ; and on the floors, side-walls, ceilings, and windows within ; 

 tables, cupboards, beds, stools, all are covered with them, so that they are 

 a kind of ubiquitaries. We sometimes kill a cockroach, and throw him on 

 the ground ; and mark what they will do with him : his body is bigger than 

 a hundred of them, and yet they will find the means to take hold of him, 

 and lift him up ; and having him above ground, away they carry him, and 

 some go by as ready assistants, if any be weary ; and some are the officers 

 that lead and show the way to the hole into which he must pass ; and if 

 the vancouriers perceive that the body of the cockroach lies across, and 

 will not pass through the hole or arch through which they mean to carry 

 him, order is given, and the body turned endwise, and this is done a foot 

 before they come to the hole, and that without any stop or stay ; and this 

 is observable, that they never pull contrary ways. A table being cleared 

 with great care, by way of experiment, of all the ants that were upon it, 

 and some sugar being put upon it, some, after a circuitous route, were ob- 

 served to arrive at it, when, again departing without tasting the treasure, 

 they hastened away to inform their friends of their discovery, who upon 

 this came by myriads ; and when they are thickest upon the table," says 

 he, " clap a large book (or any thing fit for that purpose) upon them, so 

 hard as to kill all 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 gallipot filled with sugar, and the ants 

 will presently find it and come upon the table ; but when they perceive it 

 environed with water, they try about the brims of the dish where the 

 gallipot is nearest ; and there the most venturous 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 remarkable organs, their antennae, are 

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



1 Hist, of Barbados, p. G3. 

 T 2 



