46 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 



others. A very peaceful and gentle ant, which never 

 ventures on a combat, is the Botryomyrmex meridionalis. 



The English naturalist, Sir John Lubbock, who has made 

 many careful attempts to investigate the character and 

 life-habits of ants, and who has published his results in the 

 Journal of the Linnaean Society (Zool. xii. and xiii. vols.) 

 was able to establish a great distinction in the behavior 

 of various individuals under exactly similar circum- 

 stances. 



As there are in Europe alone more than thirty genera 

 and more than a hundred species, and in the whole world 

 more than a thousand species of ants, sprung from the same 

 stock, it is easy to understand what a countless host of 

 differences in bodily construction, character, intelligence, 

 conduct, habits, manners, and so on, there must be differences 

 which it would take whole volumes to fully describe. We 

 will only concern ourselves here with the most remarkable, 

 striking, and best known species. 



That the extreme intelligence of ants must be related to 

 a special development of their nervous system and especially 

 of their organ of thought, or brain, will be a matter of 

 course to the anatomist and physiologist, who knows that 

 the organ and the function or its action under given 

 circumstances must co-exist side by side. For others, 

 however, it is interesting and important to learn that the 

 brain of the ant is comparatively the largest in the class 

 Insecta, and is even more developed than that of the bee. 

 According to a table compiled by Titus Graber (" On 

 Insects," vol. i., p. 255) the volume or size of the brain 

 of bees is the 200th, and that of the so-called accessory brain, 

 or the "stalked bodies," [discovered by Dujardin, and 

 named by him corps pe'doncule's. See Annales des Sciences, 

 3rd series, Zool. torn. xiv. 1850. p. 200. TR.] the 1000th 

 part of the size of the whole body, of ants the 280th and 

 the 600th part, while the brain of the cockchafer, which 

 has no accessory brain, is only the 3000th part of its body. 

 There is doubtless, therefore, the same difference as between 

 men and the large mammals (horse, bull, etc.) which are 

 subject to men, in consequence of their lesser brain and 

 mental powers, although the latter are much smaller and 

 weaker in body This is also true of the huge elephant, 

 although its brain, corresponding with the size of its body, 



