INTERCOMMUNICATION 199 
following of other ants, she was taken up on a slip of paper 
and transferred to the food. The followers, thus deprived of 
their leader, in nearly all cases failed to find the store. “I 
conclude, then,” says Lord Avebury, “that when large 
numbers of ants come to food they follow one another, being 
also, to a large extent, guided by scent. The fact, therefore, 
does not imply any considerable power of intercommunication.” 
There are, moreover, some circumstances which seem to 
strengthen this conclusion. For instance, “if a number of 
slave-ants are put in a box, and if in one corner a dark place 
of retreat be provided for them, with some earth, one soon 
finds her way to it. She then comes out again, and going up 
to one of the others, takes her by the jaws and carries her 
to the place of shelter. They then both repeat the same 
manceuvre with other ants, and so on until all their com- 
panions are collected together. Now, it seems difficult to 
imagine that so slow a course would be adopted, if they 
possessed any power of communicating description.” 
Lord Avebury is, however, of opinion that such insects 
can transmit simpler ideas. He found, for example, that 
where ants were put to a large and a small store of larve 
under similar circumstances, a greater number of insects 
followed the ant that had discovered the larger store. This 
may, indeed, have been due rather to a difference in manner 
than to any intentional communication ; but the fact remains 
that through some difference of behaviour there resulted 
suggestive effects on other members of the community. 
But although there can be little doubt that the behaviour 
of social insects has suggestive value for others, it may still be 
regarded as very doubtful whether they are able to communi- 
cate information to one another by any system of language’or 
signs, purposively employed as a system to this end. The 
distinguished geologist, Hague, communicated to Darwin * the 
effects on ants of crushing some of their number as they pro- 
ceeded along a definite trail. “As soon as those ants which 
were approaching arrived near to where their fellows lay dead 
* Nature, vol. vii., p. 443. 
