54 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



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 gallypot 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 gallypot 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." 1 



The fact being certain that ants impart their ideas to each 

 other, we are next led to inquire by what means this is ac- 

 complished. It does not appear that, like the bees, they emit 

 any significative sounds ; their language, therefore, must con- 

 sist 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 

 remarkable organs, their antennse, 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 before 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 antennas 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 antenna?, 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 



1 Hist, of Barbadoes, p. 63. 



