274 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
have, and still more so that the eyes of the workers 
should be smaller than those of the males and females 
which do no work. But when we remember the 
blind Termites (p. 225), and how they build intricate 
homes without any eyes at all, we are prepared to 
find that it is the antennae which are chiefly used by 
ants to guide them in their work. 
What the true history of these antennae is, and 
how the ants communicate by means of them, we 
shall probably never know ; for though it is almost 
certain that they use them for feeling and smelling, 
and perhaps even for hearing, yet there seems to be 
some other sense in them by which one ant can tell 
another of danger, or food, or work to be done. 
For instance, Sir J. Lubbock, who is unwearying 
in making careful and accurate observations on the 
habits of ants, has lately tried the experiment of 
pinning a fly or a spider to the ground, so that the 
ant which found it could not drag it away. On 
nearly all occasions the ant returning to the nest 
brought friends to help her ; seven, twelve, and in 
one case fifteen came ; and as she did not carry any- 
thing with her to show that she had found a prize, 
it is almost certain that she must have told them of 
it in some way. The ants which she brought often 
came slowly and reluctantly, wandering hither and 
thither so as to be half-an-hour in reaching the dead 
insect, and once the first ant growing impatient 
started off again to the nest and brought a second 
body of recruits, who " after most persevering efforts 
carried off the spider piecemeal." These ants, then, 
had some means of telling the other ants that they 
wanted help, and how much they wanted ; and numer- 
