222 THE SENSE OF HEARING. 
which I tried them. I have over and over again 
tested them with the loudest and shrillest noises I 
could make, using a penny pipe, a dog-whistle, a 
violin, as well as the most piercing and startling 
sounds I could produce with my own voice, but all 
without effect. At the same time, I carefully avoided 
inferring from this that they are really deaf, though 
it certainly seems that their range of hearing is very 
different from ours. 
In order, if possible, to throw some light upon 
this interesting question, I made a variety of loud 
noises, including those produced by a complete 
set of tuning-forks, as near as possible to the ants 
mentioned in the preceding pages, while they were 
on their journeys to and fro between the nests and 
the larve. In these cases the ants were moving 
steadily and in a most business-like manner, and any 
start or alteration of pace would have: been at once 
apparent. I was never able, however, to perceive that 
they took the slightest notice of any of these sounds. 
Thinking, however, that they might perhaps be too 
much absorbed by the idea of the larve to take any 
notice of my interruptions, I took one or two ants at 
random and put them on a strip of paper, the two ends 
of which were supported by pins with their bases in 
water. The ants imprisoned under these circumstances 
wandered slowly backwards and forwards along the 
paper. As they did so,I tested them in the same 
manner as before, but was unable to perceive that they 
