358 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



Ligon's account of the ants in Barbadoes affords another most convinc- 

 ing 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, put 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, cup-boards, 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 end- 

 wise, and this is done a foot before they come to the hole, and that with- 

 out 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 observed 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 gallypot 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 gallypot 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 lan- 

 guage, 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 



' Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 63. 



