90 PROGRESS AMONG ANTS. 
M. Lespés has given a short but interesting 
account of some experiments made by him on the 
relations existing between ants and their domestic 
animals, from which it might be inferred that even 
within the limits of a single species some communities 
are more advanced than others. He states that speci- 
mens of the curious blind beetle Claviger, which 
always occurs with ants, when transferred from a nest 
of Lasius niger to another which kept none of these 
domestic beetles, were invariably attacked and eaten. 
From this he infers that the intelligence necessary to 
keep Clavigers is not coextensive with the species, but 
belongs only to certain communities and races, which, 
so to say, are more advanced in civilisation than the 
rest of the species. 
With reference to the statements of Lespés, I have 
more than once transferred specimens of Platyarthrus 
from one nest to another, and always found them 
received amicably. I even placed specimens from 
a nest of Lasius flavus in one of Formica fusca 
with the same result. I brought from the South of 
France some specimens of a different species, as yet 
undescribed, and put them in a nest of Formica fusca, 
where they lived for some time, and brought up more 
than one brood of young. These creatures, however, 
occur in most ants’ nests, while Clavigers are only 
found in some. 
But whether there are differences in advancement 
within the limits of the same species or not, there are 
