132 ANTS AXD ANT LIFE. 



*' Animal Language," 1874, p. 129) relates that he one day 

 killed with his finger a number of ants which daily came out 

 of a hole to some flowers standing on a chimney-piece and 

 did not allow themselves to be disturbed by brushing their 

 path. The result of this was that all new coiners at once 

 turned back again and tried to persuade those of their com- 

 panions not yet conscious of the danger to do the same. 

 Those meeting each other held a short conversation, the 

 result of which was not an immediate return, the arriving 

 ants seeking a proof for themselves. When the war-making 

 ants are going to take the field, they hold council in the same 

 way, as will later be more fully explained, and talk, over the 

 resolution arrived at. When a hungry ant wants food, it 

 communicates with its comrades by movements of its feelers. 

 The helpless larvae are in the same manner bidden to open 

 their mouths for food. Mutual likes and dislikes are also 

 signified by means of this gesture-language. Landois is 

 further of opinion that, judging by his own observations, 

 ants must have not only a gesture- language but also a spoken 

 or voice language, even though it be not audible to human 

 ears, while Sir John Lubbock (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool. xiv., 

 p. 265 seq.) thinks himself obliged to deny this, following 

 his own investigations. For instance Landois threw a large 

 live cross-spider on a very populous ant-heap. In a trice the 

 whole colony was alarmed, and that with a celerity which 

 only seemed explicable to him by some kind of acoustic com- 

 munication. A large number of ants flung themselves on 

 the spider, and a tremendous struggle ensued which ended in 

 the complete defeat of the intruder. Landois also succeeded 

 in proving the existence of a sound apparatus, or strident 

 (rasping) organ in the abdomen of ants. According to 

 Ponera the strident noise can be heard by the human ear, 

 but not by the ants themselves. 



Further, the language or the power of communication 

 must vary in richness and completeness in different species. 

 For it has already been mentioned, for example, that on 

 the occasion of a projected change of dwelling one ant will 

 take another between its jaws and carry it to the place 

 selected for the new abode, while others do not need so 

 practical a method of communication, but understand each 

 other by signs and gestures. The most frequent, or one of 

 the most frequent occasions for mutual communication and 



