THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 163 
not communicate with their sisters, even if they find an 
untenanted comb full of honey;” that, far from exhibiting 
“any evidence of affection, they appear to be callous and 
utterly indifferent to one another ;” that even “ their devotion 
to their queen is of a most limited character;” and that 
their perception of differences of colour is incontestible,—a 
deduction equally applicable to wasps. Some experiments 
were also made “ with the view of ascertaining whether the 
same bees act as sentinels.” Having found that particular 
scents had the effect of calling the bees out, he marked 
twelve, in all, of those which first appeared on several 
successive days; and, in nine such experiments, “out of 
ninety-seven bees which came out first, no less than seventy- 
one were marked ones.” He likewise tested some of the 
faculties attributed to ants, and especially their “ power of 
communicating facts to one another,” which his first recited 
experiments served to corroborate; although “some appeared 
to communicate more freely with their friends than others,” 
which did not summon their companions to assist them. - By 
a further series of ‘ Observations” on these races, more 
recently read before the Linnean Society, and communicated 
by the author to ‘ Nature’ (No. 315, November 11th), we are 
also informed that one ant made no less than one hundred 
and eighty-seven journeys in a day to carry off larve one by 
one, without bringing any other ant to assist her; but, in 
other instances, a different result was witnessed, the ants 
which had the heaviest task to perform having “ brought far 
more friends to their assistance than those which had 
apparently only two or three larve to remove ;” these latter 
being replaced by others from time to time as each was 
carried off. Thus, “of thirty ants which were observed, 
those placed to a large number of larve brought two hundred 
and fifty friends, while those placed to two or three larve 
under similar circumstances only brought eighty.” We also 
find that ants prefer a beaten track, however circuitous, to 
hazarding a short cut by dropping even “one-tenth of an 
inch ;” but had retreat been cut off altogether, their ingenuity 
to devise some other mode of escape might have been more 
sorely tested. In these and other experiments upon the 
aforesaid social tribes, the most striking evidence is afforded 
of the indefatigable industry with which such observations 
