Ants. 47 



tion of insensibility ants are recognised by their 

 friends. 



It has been already shown that with ants, as 

 with bees, while the utmost harmony reigns between 

 those belonging to the same community, all others 

 are enemies. I have elsewhere given ample proof 

 that a strange ant is never tolerated in a com- 

 munity. This of course implies that all the bees or 

 ants of a community have the power of recognising 

 one another a most surprising fact, when we con- 

 sider their immense numbers. It is calculated that 

 in a single hive there may be as many as 50,000 

 bees, and in the case of ants the numbers are still 

 greater. In the large communities of ants it is 

 probable that there may be as many as from 

 400,000 to 500,000 ants, and in other cases even 

 these large numbers are exceeded. 



10. If, however, a stranger is put among the ants 

 of another nest she is at once attacked 



Moreover, we have not only to deal with the fact 

 that ants know all their comrades, but that they 

 recognise them even after a lengthened separation. 



Huber mentions some ants which he had kept 

 in captivity, and which had accidentally escaped, 

 " met and recognised their former companions, fell 

 to mutual caresses with their antennae, took them 

 up by their mandibles, and led them to their own 

 nests ; they came presently in a crowd to seek the 

 fugitives under and about the artificial ant-hill, and 

 even ventured to reach the bell-glass, where they 



