PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 65 
The fact being certain, that ants impart their ideas 
to each other, we are next led to inquire by what means 
this is accomplished. It does not appear that, like the 
bees, they emit any significative sounds; their language, 
therefore, must consist of signs or gestures, some of 
which I shall now detail. In communicating their fear 
or expressing their anger, they run from one to another 
in a semicircle, and strike with their head or jaws the 
trunk or abdomen of the ant to which they mean to give 
information of any subject of alarm. But those remark- 
able organs, their antenna, are the principal instruments 
of their speech, if I may so call it, supplying the place 
both of voice and words. When the military ants be- 
fore alluded to go upon their expeditions, and are out of 
the formicary, previously to setting off, they touch each 
other on the trunk with their antenns and forehead; 
—this is the signal for marching; for, as soon as any 
one has received it, he is immediately in motion. When 
they have any discovery to communicate, they strike with 
them those that they meet in a particularly impressive 
manner.—If a hungry ant wants to be fed, it touches with 
its two antennae, moving them very rapidly, those of the 
individual from which it expects its meal :—and not only 
ants understand this language, but even Aphides and 
Cocci, which are the milch kine of our little pismires, do 
the same, and will yield them their saccharine fluid at 
the touch of these imperative organs. The helpless lar- 
vee also of the ants are informed by the same means when 
they may open their mouths to receive their food. > 
Next to their language, and scarcely different from it, 
are the modes by which they express their affections and 
aversions. Whether ants, with man and some of the 
VOL. II. YF 
