PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 323 
proof of this: as he has told his tale in a lively and interesting manner, I 
shall give it nearly in his own words. 
“The next of these moving little animals are ants or pismires, and these 
are but of a small size, but great in industry; and that which gives them 
means to attain to this end is, they have all one soul. If I should say 
they are here or there, I should do them wrong, for they are everywhere ; 
under ground, where any hollow or loose earth is; amongst the roots of 
trees; upon the bodies, branches, leaves, and fruit of all trees; in all places 
without the houses and within; upon the sides, walls, windows, and roofs 
without ; and on the floors, side-walls, ceilings, and windows within ; 
tables, cupboards, beds, stools, all are covered with them, so that they are 
akind of ubiquitaries. We sometimes kill a cockroach, and throw him on 
the ground ; and mark what they will do with him: his body is bigger than 
a hundred of them, and yet they will find the means to take hold of him, 
and lift him up ; and having him above ground, away they carry him, and 
some go by as ready assistants, if any be weary ; and some are the officers 
that lead and show the way to the hole into which he must pass ; and if 
the vancouriers perceive that the body of the cockroach lies across, and 
will not pass through the hole or arch through which they mean to carry 
him, order is given, and the body turned endwise, and this is done a foot 
before they come to the hole, and that without any stop or stay; and this 
is observable, that they never pull contrary ways. A table being cleared 
with great care, by way of experiment, of all the ants that were upon it, 
and some sugar being put upon it, some, after a circuitous route, were ob- 
served to arrive at it, when, again departing without tasting the treasure, 
they hastened away to inform their friends of their discovery, who upon 
this came by myriads ; and when they are thickest upon the table,” says 
he, “clap a large book (or any thing fit for that purpose) upon them, so 
hard as to kill all that are under it; and when you have done so, take away 
the book, and leave them to themselves but a quarter of an hour, and when 
you come again you shall find all those bodies carried away. Other trials 
we make of their ingenuity, as this : — take a pewter dish, and fill it half 
full of water, into which put a little gallipot filled with sugar, and the ants 
will presently find it and come upon the table; but when they perceive it 
environed with water, they try about the brims of the dish where the 
gallipot is nearest ; and there the most venturous amongst them commits 
himself to the water, though he be conscious how ill a swimmer he is, and 
is drowned in the adventure : the next is not warned by his example, but 
ventures too, and is alike drowned; and many more, so that there is a 
small foundation of their bodies to venture ; and then they come faster 
than ever, and so make a bridge of their own bodies.” ! 
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 ex ressing their anger, they run 
from one to another in a semicircle, and ne 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 remarkable organs, their antenna, are 
the principal instruments of their speech, if I may so call it, supplying the 
1 Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 68. 
y2 
