ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 57 



you can, and think no more of playing and of pleasing the 

 passers-by.' " 



The ability of ants to understand each other was known 

 to the ancients, as will have been seen by the above-cited 

 passage from Pliny. The following anecdote is found in 

 Plutarch (" De Solertise Animalium," chap. 11): "A cer- 

 tain Cleanthes relates that he has seen ants going from one 

 ant-heap to the entrance of another, carrying a dead ant. 

 Other ants came out of the latter, conversed with the new- 

 comers and went back again. This scene was repeated twice 

 or thrice, until at last a worm was brought out of the depths 

 of the nest, which was evidently to serve as a I'ansom for 

 the dead body. Then the ants which had brought the 

 corpse, left it lying there, and carried away the worm 

 instead." 



However incredible this may sound, it is beyond doubt that 

 ants and bees have been seen carrying away and even bury- 

 ing their dead, and of this further details will be given later. 



From this same passage of Plutarch we learn further 

 that the ancients were acquainted with the habit of ants 

 of biting off the germinating radicles of seeds in order to 

 prevent their growth, and that they had also seen ants, car- 

 rying loads which were too heavy for them, try to lighten 

 them by biting off pieces. 



That which most attracted observation in ancient times 

 was the habit of ants living in the South, of. gathering corn 

 and laying up stores for the winter. Of their other remark- 

 able characteristics, such as their wonderful social polity, 

 nothing or very little appears to have been known, while 

 attention was directed more to the study of the animals 

 whose size more readily attracted notice. When an animal 

 is very minute, people are apt to think that its organisation 

 must be very simple, and its intelligence very small, and 

 the influence of this prejudice over the majority is great. 

 The gigantic dimensions of a whale, or of a reptile of the 

 fossil age, attract general attention, while this attention is 

 difficult to arouse, if the most wonderful phenomena are 

 exhibited in the life of a gnat or an ant. And yet the 

 extraordinary capabilities of an apparently lowly creature 

 are exactly that which yields to the philosopher the most 

 valuable results. But the incredible fineness of sense 

 in insects ought to have warned the observer that corre- 



