938 The American Naturalist. [November, 
the corpse, and, having satisfied themselves that their sister 
was dead, returned to the nest. In a few moments a large 
worker-ant, accompanied by two soldier ants, came out and 
proceeding to the body, picked it up and carried it down the 
tree to the ground. "They then went beneath the grass and I 
lost sight of them. "Their every action seemed to me to be 
governed by an almost human intelligence. The discoverer 
of the murder hurried into town, gave the alarm, and, 
quickly gathering some of his companions, went out in 
search of the murderer.. On discovering that their companion 
was dead and her slayer absent, they came back to town and 
sent out a burial party. 
The ant is the only animal except man, which has slaves 
and domestic animals. Their intelligence is so highly 
developed that they make a perfect success in rearing their 
cattle and in capturing their slaves. The cattle of the ants 
are of the order Aphidide. The herdsmen of these aphidian 
cattle can be seen patroling the shrubs on which the 
aphides are grazing. On them devolves the care of the 
herds. They bring them out in the. morning and carry them 
back at night. They gather the eggs of the aphides, 
carry them into a specially built nursery, attend them care- 
fully until the young aphides are hatched out, and then carry 
them to the shrubs most liked by them for food. Some - 
strange sense enable them to recognize one another—an ant of 
the same species, but coming from another nest, is immediately 
recognized as a stranger and at once attacked. If the eggs of 
one ant colony are hatched out in another of the same species, 
the young ants are at once known to be strangers and intrud- 
ers. This far transcends our intelligence. What mother 
could recognize her infant if it were born in the dark and she 
had never seen it? Again, if the larve of ants are removed, 
hatched outside of the nest, and then returned, the ants at 
once recognize them as kinsmen and receive them into the 
nest" That ants and bees do communicate intelligently is no 
longer denied. Their means of communication is not defi- 
“Lubbock: Ants. Bees, and Wasps, p. 119, et. seq. 
