444 
On the mantelshelf of our sitting-room my wife has the habit 
of keeping fresh flowers. A vase stands at each end, and near 
the middle a small tumbler, usually filled with violets. 
Sometime ago I noticed a file of very small red ants on the 
wall above the left-hand vase, passing upward and downward 
between the mantelshelf and a small hole near the ceiling, at a 
point where a picture-nail had been driven. The ants, when 
first observed, were not very numerous, but gradually increased 
in number, until on some days the little creatures formed an 
almost unbroken procession, issuing from the hole at the nail, 
descending the wall, climbing the vase directly below the nail, 
satisfying their desire for water or perfume, and then returning. 
The other vase and tumbler were not visited at that time. 
As I was just then recovering from a long illness it happened 
that I was confined to the house, and spent my days in the 
room where the operations of these insects attracted my 
attention. 
Their presence caused me some annoyance, but I knew of no 
effective means of getting rid of them. For several days in 
succession I frequently brushed the ants in great numbers from 
the wall down to the floor; but as they were not killed the result 
was that they soon formed a colony in the wall at the base of the 
mantel, ascending thence to the shelf, so that before long the 
vase was attacked from above and below. 
One day I observed a number of ants, perhaps thirty or forty, 
on the shelf at the foot of the vase. Thinking to kill them I 
struck them lightly with the end of my finger, killing some and 
disabling the rest. The effect of this was immediate and un- 
expected. As soon as those ants that were approaching arrived 
near to where their fellows lay dead and suffering, they turned 
and fled with all possible haste. In half an hour the wall above 
the mantelshelf was cleared of ants. 
During the space of an hour or two the colony from below 
continued to ascend, until reaching the lower beveled edge of the 
shelf, at which point the more timid individuals, although unable 
to see the vase, somehow became aware of trouble and turned 
about without further investigation; while the more daring 
advanced hesitatingly just to the upper edge of the shelf, where, 
extending their antennz and stretching their necks, they seemed 
to peep cautiously over the edge until beholding their suffering 
companions, when they too turned and followed the others, ex- 
pressing by their behaviour great excitement and terror. An 
hour or two later the path or trail leading from the lower colony 
to the vase was almost entirely free from ants. 
I killed one or two ants on their path, striking them with my 
finger, but leaving no visible trace. The effect of this was that 
as soon as an ant ascending towards the shelf, reached the spot 
where one had been killed, it gave signs immediately of great 
disturbance, and returned directly at the highest speed possible. 
A curious and invariable feature of their behaviour was that 
when such an ant, returning in fright, met another approaching, 
the two would always communicate, but each would pursue its 
own way ; the second ant continuing its journey to the spot 
where the first had turned about and then following that 
example, 
For several days after this there were no ants visible on the 
wall, either above or below the shelf. Then a few ants from the 
lower colony began to re-appear, but instead of visiting the vase 
which had been the scene of the disaster, they avoided it alto- 
gether, and following the lower front edge of the shelf to the 
tumbler standing near the middle, made their attack upon that. 
I repeated the same experiment here with precisely the same 
result. Killing or maiming a few of the ants and leaving their 
bodies about the base of the tumbler, the others on approaching, 
and even before arriving at the upper surface of the shelf where 
their mutilated companions were visible, gave signs of intense 
emotion, some running away immediately and others advancing 
to where they could survey the field, and then hastening away 
precipitately. 
Occasionally an ant would advance towards the tumbler until 
it found itself among the dead and dying, then it seemed to lose 
all self-possession, running hither and thither, making wide 
circuits about the scene of the trouble, stopping at times and 
elevating the antennz with a movement suggestive of wringing 
them in despair, and finally taking flight. 
After this another interval of several days passed during which 
no ants appeared. Now, three months later, the lower colony 
has been entirely abandoned. Occasionally however, especially 
when fresh and fragrant violets have been placed on the shelf, 
a few ‘‘ prospectors” descend from the upper nail hole, rarely, 
NATURE 
[April Io, 1873 
almost never, approaching the vase from which they were first 
driven away, but seeking to satisfy their desire at the tumbler. 
To turn back these stragglers and keep them out of sight for a 
number of days, sometimes for a fortnight, it is sufficient to’kill 
one or two ants on the trail which they follow descending the 
wall. This I have recently done as high up as I can reach— 
three or four feet above the mantel, The moment this spot is 
reached an ant turns abruptly and makes for home; and in a 
little while there is not an ant visible on the wall. _ 
James D, HacGuEe 
San Francisco, California, Feb, 26, 1873 
Perception in Butterflies 
THE interesting discussion on this subject in your columns has 
hitherto been almost entirely confined to facts of extraordinary 
‘perception ”” with mammalia. But in other classes of the 
animal kingdom there occur instances perhaps even more as- 
tonishing still, showing a power of perception which we needs 
must attribute to smell, unless we are inclined to talk about 
natural forces hitherto unknown, to which I should prefer saying 
that we do not yet understand the matter at all. 
In the valuable monthly, ‘‘Der Zoologische Garten,” v. X. 
(1869) p.254, there is a paper on the sense of smell in butter- 
flies, recording, among other cases, the following one. 
A well-known collector, the late M. Riese of Frankfort, bred 
a crippled female of Lastocampa prunt, a species very rare here: 
M. Riese dwelt in a narrow and densely-peopled lane near the 
centre of this city. He put the said moth before the window 
with his other boxes, and soon had the pleasure to find it sur- 
rounded by some males, which became the collector’s welcome 
prey. Here, asthe writer fitly remarks, the performance of the 
male in finding out the female was the more surprising, by the 
latter being confined in the middle of the town as well as by the 
rarity of the species in general. 
If, as the writer adds, there can be any doubt of the males 
being guided in these cases by smell, what is more to be won- 
dered at, the acuteness of the males (supposed to be located in 
the large comb-shaped antennz) or the enormous divisibility of 
the odour emitted by the females? 
I may add that similar and even more striking cases (the 
females being confined within a room,-and the males appearing 
outside at the windows) have been recorded by that most reliable 
observer, the late Dr. von Heyden. 
Though I am not prepared to follow the whole length of Mr. 
Darwin’s ideas on ‘‘ Pangenesis,” yet I cannot avoid observin, 
how much such facts as these seem to support the fundamen’ 
assumption of that ‘‘ provisional hypothesis,” namely that 
organised matter is capable of a degree of divisibility 
scarcely conceivable by us, yet retaining in those most minute 
particles, infinitely smallerthan any which can be revealed by 
our microscopes, all its specific distinctness,—the ‘ gemmulz ” 
issuing from the female of a particular species reaching and 
affecting the distant male, and thereby testing their particular, 
specific nature. J. D, WETTERHAN 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine, April § 
—— 
Perception in Fowlsy 
SEEING in NATURE many letters on the instinct of animals I 
am tempted to send you an incident which fell under my notice 
and which would seem to denote in domestic fowls a greater 
amount of reasoning power and of intercommunication than the 
lower animals are usually credited with. 
Three years ago I was staying at a house in Ireland where a 
good deal of poultry was kept, and a young white duck just 
feathered being the only one left of a brood was allowed to 
roost with a hen and a young brood of chickens under the 
furnace in the back kitchen, to keep it from the rats which 
infested the out-houses. One evening our attention was called 
by the servants to a great commotion between the hen and the 
duck, which had always before been excellent friends, and upon 
close examination it was discovered that the duck was not the 
hen’s usual companion, but although closely resembling it in 
age and colour, was a perfect stranger, not even belonging to — 
the premises at all, whilst the proper duck was found quietly 
resting with the other ducks in the duck-house. The intruder 
having been ejected, and the ordinary bed-fellow restored to the 
hen, peace again reigned between the feathered companions; 
but the singular part of the affair is, how the duck could have 
re 
