364 TlMEHRI. 
recognition. Among the latest writers on this point is 
Sir JOHN LUBBOCK in his " Ants, Bees and Wasps." 
Though hesitating to make the suggestion to so wonder- 
fully close and acute an observer, it has yet occurred to 
me as possible, it seems to me even probable, that this 
recognition by ants of their fellows and their hostility to 
all whom they do not so recognise is merely the exact 
parallel of the similar habit of the members of a more 
or less small tribe of primitive men. 
It may perhaps readily be granted that each ant ex- 
pects to find in each other ant with which it meets a being 
exactly similar to itself. And it will probably also be 
granted that when it meets an ant of another species, 
or, still more, another genus, than its own it at once 
seeing those differences which are so very obvious even 
to our coarser eyes that we are able to pronounce the 
distinction of the species or the genera, regards it as 
a thing to be dreaded, an enemy, and at once attacks it. 
But it will not be so readily granted that when an ant 
meets another of its own species but from a distant nest, 
or from a nest near, but not the same as its own, or from 
its own nest from which it has been for some time re- 
moved by some such external circumstance as an 
experiment-loving Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, and is, in the 
respective cases, hostile, not hostile, or even disposed 
to be affectionately friendly that the particular line of 
conduct which it adopts is dependent on its recognition 
in the new-comer of but a very distant similarity, or a 
closer similarity, or a very close similarity, to itself. It 
may be that the qualities which it looks for in the new- 
comer are such as it detects, if present, by smell, or it 
may detect them by touch or by hearing, but more pro- 
