iS77-j 
Our Six-footed Rivals. 
45i 
thousand years. To this argument we must reply that the 
isolation between British and Continental species of inserts 
is by no means so complete as is here assumed. Winged 
ants travel very considerable distances, and, if our memory 
does not deceive us, have been met with out at sea. That 
a part of a swarm should be blown over from the French 
coast to England, or vice versa, is by no means improbable. 
And it is well known that if a party of working ants fall in 
with an impregnated female of their own species, they- im- 
mediately lead her to their nest and install her in a royal 
apartment. That there may have been within the last ten 
thousand — or even one thousand— years dire (ft intercommu- 
nication of this kind between the slave-making ants of 
England and those of Switzerland seems to us fully more 
probable than the contrary supposition. 
Again, we may ask whether the conditions under which 
ants would be respectively placed in Switzerland and in 
England are not so closely analogous that their social deve- 
lopment must proceed on parallel lines ? In both they 
would encounter nearly the same climate, the same food, 
and the same enemies. Surely, therefore, a close corre- 
spondence in habits is no decisive proof of their immobility.- 
But, after all, is there such an absolute accord between the 
habits of the Swiss and of the British ants as the validity 
of Professor Fleer’s argument would require ? Mr. Darwin 
thinks that in the nests of the British Formica sanguined 
there is a relatively smaller proportion of slaves, which 
therefore play a less important part in the economy of the 
ant-hill. Messrs. Kirby and Spence record a faCt which, 
isolated as it is, seems to us to overthrow altogether the 
hypothesis of absolute stationariness. Ants have been 
found, namely, to establish their nest in the interval be- 
tween the double casing of a glass bee-hive. Now, as such 
bee-hives are artificial objects and of very recent origin, 
they cannot have come in the way of the ants for any great 
length of time. They offered, however, a certain advantage 
in the uniform temperature and the shelter which they sup- 
plied. This facft must have been recognised by some prying 
ant, and the discovery being communicated to its comrades 
was turned to practical account. Is not this case the exadc 
parallel of a step in the development of human civilisation ? 
And if, as we see, ants can in one case observe a phenome- 
non, reason on such observation, and work out their conclu- 
sions in their daily life, we can certainly see no grounds for 
supposing that such processes may not have occurred often. 
Tn the case of larger animals, where observation is easier, 
Z 1 z 
