524 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
empty hive, but had been punished for their presumption, 
and the dear-bought lesson was not lost on the rest of the 
community. 
Insects, in the third place, are able mutually to com- 
municate and receive information, which, in whatever way 
effected, would be impracticable if they were devoid of 
reason. Under this head it is only necessary to refer 
you to the endless facts in proof, furnished by almost 
every page of my letters on the history of ants and of the 
hive-bee. I shall therefore but detain you for a moment 
with an additional anecdote or two, especially with one 
respecting the former tribe, which is valuable from the 
celebrity of the relater. ’ 
Dr. Franklin was of opinion that ants could commir- 
nicate their ideas to each other; in proof of which he re- 
lated to Kalm, the Swedish traveller, the following fact. 
Having placed a pot containing treacle in a closet infested 
with ants, these insects found their way into it, and were 
feasting very heartily when he discovered them. He then 
shook them out and suspended the pot by a string from 
the ceiling. By chance one ant remained, which, after 
eating its fill, with some difficulty found its way up the 
string, and thence reaching the ceiling, escaped by the 
wall to its nest. In less than half an hour a great com- 
pany of ants sallied out of their hole, climbed the ceiling, 
crept along the string into the pot, and began to eat again. 
This they continued until the treacle was all consumed, 
one swarm running up the string while another passed 
down. It seems indisputable that the one ant had in 
4 Kalm’s Tvavels in North America, 1, 239. 
