268 STE JOHN LUBBOCK ON ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. 



particles of earth they would have secured for themselves direct 

 access to the food. This, however, never occurred to them. At 

 length they gave up all attempts to reach up to the glass, and went 

 round by the paper bridge. I left the arrangement for several 

 weeks, but tliey continued to go round by the long paper bridge. 



'Further Test Experiments witli Glycerine. 

 Again I varied the experiment as follows : — Having left a nest 

 w'ithout food for a short time, I placed some honey on a small 

 wooden brick surrounded by a little moat of glycerine about 

 \ an inch wide and about -^ of an inch in depth. Over this 

 moat I then placed a paper bridge, one end of which rested on 

 some fine mould. I then put an ant to the honey, and soon a 

 little crowd was collected round it. 1 then removed the paper 

 bridge ; t"he ants could not cross the glycerine, they came to the 

 edge and walked round and round, but were unable to get across, 

 nor did it occur to them to make a bridge or bank across the gly- 

 cerine with the mould which I had placed so conveniently for 

 them. I was the more surprised at this on account of the inge- 

 nuity with which they avail themselves of earth for constructing 

 their nests. For instance, wishing, if possible, to avoid the trouble 

 of frequently moistening the earth in my nests, I supplied one of my 

 ant-nests of Lasiusflavus with a frame containing, instead of earth, 

 a piece of linen, one portion of which projected beyond the frame 

 and was immersed in water. The linen then sucked up the water 

 by capillary attraction, and thus the air in the frame was kept 

 moist. The ants approved of this arrangement, and took up 

 their quarters in the frame. To minimize evaporation I usually 

 closed the frames all round, leaving only one or two small open- 

 ings for the ants, but in this case I left the outer side of the frame 

 open. The ants, however, did not like being thus exposed ; they 

 thereforebrought earth from some little distance, and built up a re- 

 gular wall along the open side, blocking up the space between the 

 upper and lower plates of glass, and leaving only one or two small 

 openings for themselves. This struck me as very ingenious. The 

 same expedient was, moreover, repeated under similar circum- 

 stances by the slaves belonging to my nest of Polyergus. 



On the Origin of new Communities. 



It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the labours of so many 

 excellent observers, and though ants' nests swarm in every field 

 and every wood, we do not yet know how their nests commence. 



