108 A DEAD QUEEN. 
she was still alive, but on the 15th, notwithstanding all 
their care, she was dead! 
At the present time I have two other ants perfectly 
crippled in a similar manner, and quite unable to move, 
which have lived in two different nests, belonging also 
to F. fusca, the one for five the other for four months. 
In May 1879 I gave a lecture on Ants at the Royal 
Institution, and was anxious to exhibit a nest of 
Lasius flavus with the queen. While preparing the 
nest, on May 9, we accidentally crushed the queen. 
The ants, however, did not desert her, or drag her 
out as they do dead workers, but, on the contrary, 
carried her with them into the new nest, and subse- 
quently into a larger one with which I supplied them, 
congregating round her, just as if she had been alive, 
for more than six weeks, when we lost sight of her. 
In order to ascertain whether ants knew their 
fellows by any sign or pass word, as has been suggested 
in the case of bees, I was anxious to see if they could re- 
cognise them when in a state of insensibility. I tried 
therefore the following experiments with some specimens 
of Lasius flavus. 
September 10, at 6 p.M., a number of these ants were 
out feeding on some honey, placed on one of my tables, 
and surrounded by a moat of water. I chloroformed 
four of them and also four from a nest in my park, at some 
distance from the place where the first. had been origi- 
nally procured, painted them, and put them close to the 
honey. Up to 8.20 the ants had taken no notice of 
