A MODE OF INTERCOMMUNICATION. 
251 
and march along the summit of the ant-hill. The escapade, however, 
was not long permitted. A nurse encountering the fugitive, seized it 
by the top of its head, and conducted it gently towards a neighbouring 
entrance. 
The child resisted; it suffered itself to be dragged along, and on 
the way coming in contact with a small piece of wood, profited by it 
to stiffen itself, and exhaust its conductor’s strength. The latter, 
always keeping its temper, let go for a moment, executed a flank 
movement, and then returned to the charge, until its nursling, tired 
out, was compelled to yield obedience. 
As soon as the young are strong enough, they have to be brought 
acquainted with the interior labyrinth of the city, the suburbs, the 
avenues which lead to the outer world, and the neighbouring roads. 
Then they are trained to hunt, are accustomed to provide for them¬ 
selves, to live haphazard and upon little or any kind of food. Tem¬ 
perance is the basis of the whole commonwealth. 
The ant, not being fastidious, but accepting all descriptions of 
food, is from this very cause the less anxious, restless, and selfish. It 
is very wrong to call it a miser. Far from being so, it seems solely 
intent upon multiplying in its city the number of its co-partners. In 
its generous maternal care of those whom it has not begotten, in its 
solicitude for those little ones of yesterday which to-day become young 
citizens, originates a feeling quite novel and very rare among insects,— 
that of fraternity. (See the works of Latreille and Huber.) 
The obscurest and most curious point of their education is, undoubt¬ 
edly, the communication of language, which reminds the observer of 
the forms of freemasonry. It enables them to transmit really compli¬ 
cated directions to their legions, and to change in a moment the march 
of a whole column, the action of an entire populace. 
This language principally consists in the touch of the antennae, or 
in a light collision of the mandibles. They urge (or perhaps persuade) 
by blows of the head against the thorax. Finally, they sometimes 
carry off the auditor, who makes no resistance, and transport him to 
some designated place or object. In this case, which undoubtedly is 
both difficult to believe and explain, the convinced auditor unites with 
