WAYS OF NATURE 



by a chain, might bite the kernels from an ear in 

 a mere spirit of mischief and restlessness, as a dog 

 or puppy might, and drop them upon the ground; 

 a hen would very likely be attracted by them, when 

 the fox would be quick to see his chance. 



Some of the older entomologists believed that in 

 a colony of ants and of bees the members recog- 

 nized one another by means of some secret sign or 

 password. In all cases a stranger from another 

 colony is instantly detected, and a home member 

 as instantly known. This sign or password, says 

 Burmeister, as quoted by Lubbock, " serves to pre- 

 vent any strange bee from entering into the same 

 hive without being immediately detected and killed. 

 It, however, sometimes happens that several hives 

 have the same signs, when their several members 

 rob each other with impunity. In these cases the 

 bees whose hives suffer most alter their signs, and 

 then can immediately detect their enemy." The 

 same thing was thought to be true of a colony of 

 ants. Others held that the bees and the ants knew 

 one another individually, as men of the same town 

 do ! Would not any serious student of nature in our 

 day know in advance of experiment that all this 

 was childish and absurd.'^ Lubbock showed by 

 numerous experiments that bees and ants did not 

 recognize their friends or their enemies by either 

 of these methods. Just how they did do it he could 

 not clearly settle, though it seems as if they were 

 200 



