222 THE SENSE OF HEAEING. 



which I tried them. I have over and over again 

 tested them with the loudest and shrillest noises I 

 could make, using a penny pipe, a dog-whistle, a 

 violin, as well as the most piercing and startling 

 sounds I could produce with my own voice, but all 

 without effect. At the same time, I carefully avoided 

 inferring from this that they are really deaf, though 

 it certainly seems that their range of hearing is very 

 different from ours. 



In order, if possible, to throw some light upon 

 this interesting question, I made a variety of loud 

 noises, including those produced by a complete 

 set of tuning-forks, as near as possible to the ants 

 mentioned in the preceding pages, while they were 

 on their journeys to and fro between the nests and 

 the larvae. In these cases the ants were moving 

 steadily and in a most business-like manner, and any 

 start or alteration of pace would have been at once 

 apparent. I was never able, however, to perceive that 

 they took the slightest notice of any of these sounds. 

 Thinking, however, that they might perhaps be too 

 much absorbed by the idea of the larvae to take any 

 notice of my interruptions, I took one or two ants at 

 random and put them on a strip of paper, the two ends 

 of which were supported by pins with their bases in 

 water. The ants imprisoned under these circumstances 

 wandered slowly backwards and forwards along the 

 paper. As they did so, I tested them in the same 

 manner as before, but was unable to perceive that they 



