--, :-; V 1 v feg fe iv; 
 
 
 THOUGHT.
 
 l ^f . 

 
 MIND IN ANIMALS. 
 
 PROFESSOR LUDWIG BUCHNER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' FORCE AND MATTER," ' MAN, AND HIS PLACE IN 
 
 NATURE," ETC., ETC. 
 
 Translated, with the Author's permission, from tfa German of 
 the Third Revised Edition, 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE BESANT. 
 
 LONDON : 
 FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.G. 
 1880.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 I-R1NTE1) BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 
 28, STONECUTTER STREET, B.C.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN issuing, under the name of the " INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF 
 SCIENCE AND FREETHOUGHT," a series of books of which the pre- 
 sent volume is the first, the FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 desires to place at the service of English Freethought the 
 weapons wielded against superstition in foreign countries as well 
 as those forged in England itself. The writings of foreign 
 scientists are not as well known in England as their merit 
 deserves ; there are some valuable text-books such as those of 
 Gegenbaur and of Thome which have their place on the book- 
 shelf of the student; but the aim of the FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY is to issue such works as will reach the general reader, 
 as well as the scientific student, and render Buchner, Hiickel 
 and others as well-known to the English public as are Huxley 
 and Darwin. German science is one of the glories of the world ; 
 it is time that it should lend in England that same aid to Free- 
 thought which in Germany has made every educated man a 
 Freethinker. France will contribute to this new library some of 
 the works of her leading sceptics ; and Italy, also, has furnished 
 help to Freethought which will not be forgotten. English and 
 American works will not be excluded, and it is hoped that a real 
 service will be done to progress by thus popularising in one 
 country the knowledge gained in many lands by the earnest 
 searchers after truth. 
 
 2091 057
 
 PREFACE. TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 IF the author of this book had had to choose a title for it 
 after it was written he would have called it "A Romance 
 of the Animal World." For the contents both seem and 
 are romantic and wonderful, although with the exception 
 of such doubtful or possibly doubtful observations as are 
 given on the authority of the writer himself there is 
 nothing therein which does not rest on scientific investi- 
 gation or on the evidence of trustworthy observers, who, at 
 different times and in different places, have had co-incident 
 experiences, and whose accounts bear the stamp of sober 
 research, and are the simple description of things they actually 
 saw. But as histories (of nations as of individuals), related 
 just as they really happened and still are daily happening, 
 are full of more wonderful and more startling occurrences, 
 of grander tragedy and more irresistible comedy, of more 
 apparently impossible and incredible things and events 
 than are told in fiction, and leave far behind them the 
 boldest fancies of poets and novelists, so it is also with 
 nature; she is wont, the more we peer into her secrets, to 
 bring the most marvellous, the mightiest and the most 
 astonishing forms out of the simplest and the least differen- 
 tiated. That " Mind in Animals " especially is in reality a 
 far other, higher and more complex thing than had hitherto 
 been generally conceived, and indeed than the ruling schools
 
 of philosophy desired (and still desire) to admit, can be un- 
 known to none who is acquainted with animals, not alone- 
 from hearsay and from philosophic writings, but from his 
 own intercourse with them, from his own observation, or 
 from the works and teachings of real and unprejudiced 
 observers. For such observation furnishes continually, and 
 with overwhelming fullness, the most startling and incontro- 
 vertible examples and proofs, that between the thinking,, 
 willing, and feeling of men and of animals there is the most 
 striking similarity, and often a mere difference of degree. 
 But even among comparatively educated people it has been 
 little thought and felt that this rule applies also to those 
 classes of animals which appear to be so far below us as 
 those treated of in the present work ; our intellectual vanity 
 will have to submit to bitter humiliation and rebuke in con- 
 templating the proceedings or the societies and deeds of 
 these unjustly despised, but yet, in spite of their minuteness^ 
 wonderful creatures. But the greater the humiliation from 
 the one point of view, the greater from the other is the 
 satisfaction arising from the renewed proof of the sublime 
 unity of Nature ; and hence that the same intellectual or 
 spiritual principle, call it reason, understanding, soul, in- 
 stinct, or propensity, pervades the whole organised series,. 
 even if in the most manifold modifications and variations,, 
 from below to above, from above to below. 
 
 Starting from this last standpoint, the author has not 
 thought it necessary to widen the circle of his observations 
 over the whole of the comparatively narrow and yet infinitely 
 wide and rich sphere of intelligent insect life ; he considers it 
 better, according to the true and ancient proverb, Multum non 
 multa, to treat a single species thoroughly, rather than many 
 species cursorily and superficially, thus falling into the common,
 
 blunder of writers on Animal Psychology, who are wont 
 rather to be dazzled by the overwhelming mass of materials 
 than to be enlightened thereby. For it is just in the indi- 
 vidual and in the minute, rather than in the general, that 
 the truth of the above-named principle shines out most 
 clearly and most strikingly ; and it is here, at the same time, 
 that we shall find the most easily recognisable land-marks 
 for further researches in this direction. And this is so,, 
 although the proposed sketch does not pretend to lay claim 
 to completeness, and although the writer has been compelled 
 by the limits of a popular work to confine himself to the 
 most necessary and to the most commonly known things, 
 and to make many distasteful abridgements. Even those 
 who turn away from the philosophical meaning and tendency 
 of the observations herein recorded, and only desire enter- 
 tainment, or entertaining instruction, will also, the author 
 hopes, not be disappointed in reading the book, although the- 
 thoughtful reader is enabled to enjoy a special pleasure of 
 his own in the likeness to the doings of men which lies on 
 the surface and indeed presses itself on his attention. The 
 well-known philosopher, Daumer, who has passed from 
 Radicalism to piety, has indeed made the characteristic 
 remark that many glimpses into the minds of animals ''must 
 make one shudder." But this can only be when anyone 
 clings to the antiquated notion that animals are beings 
 entirely and essentially distinct from men, and that all they 
 do can only be the outcome of unconscious and unchange- 
 able instincts. All others must feel a true intellectual joy 
 when they recognise in the psychical world that same law of 
 the origin and development of organic life, that has been 
 demonstrated in physical things by Lamarck, Oken, Darwin,. 
 Hack el, and others
 
 h will naturally be understood that the narrowing of the 
 subject to a relatively small field of Animal Psychology 
 compels the author to use only a very small number out of 
 the many hundreds of facts and observations on the intel- 
 lectual life of animals, which have been sent to him from 
 &11 parts of the world in answer to his public request, and for 
 which he here again returns his public acknowledgment ; 
 further, the greater number of these communications give the 
 result, as might be expected, of daily and private observa- 
 tions on the more accessible animals. The author therefore 
 ventures to refer his respected correspondents to a later work 
 from his own pen which, as compared with the present 
 book, undertakes a far wider task. He will therein endeavor, 
 by means of a psychological classification, to trace the dif- 
 ferent affections and manifestations of man's emotional and 
 intellectual life throughout the great circles of the animal 
 world. Here also most of the communications will be found 
 under the names of the several observers, and the author 
 trusts that this will be accepted as his personal acknowledg- 
 ment for individual help. 
 
 Darmstadt, October, 1876.
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 
 
 THE great interest which has been aroused by the publi- 
 cation of the improved edition of this work makes it 
 possible to issue this third edition, despite the comparatively 
 short time that has elapsed and the unfavorable nature of 
 the times for literary enterprises. The book has again been 
 most carefully revised, and has been enriched and rendered 
 more complete by many new additional facts taken from the 
 researches and communications of Lubbock, McCook, 
 Graber, Espinas, Taschenberg, Miiller, Dzierzon, and 
 others. Especially worthy of thanks are the researches 
 carried on in Philadelphia by the Rev. H. C. McCook, on the 
 habits of ants and spiders ; these, like the communications 
 of the above named investigators, confirm and complete in 
 almost every particular the facts already published ; this is 
 notably the case with the results given in the admirable 
 work of Dr. A. Forel on the ants of Switzerland. "We 
 cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of here quoting the ex- 
 cellent remarks of M. A. Espinas, the author of the book 
 on " Animal Societies " (translated into German by Vieweg, 
 1879), although we do not thereby wish to give the idea 
 that our own volume owes its existence to any motives save 
 to those of simple love of truth and of popular instruction or 
 instructive amusement. M. Espinas says : " To elevate 
 animal societies is at the same time to elevate those of men,
 
 who so widely surpass and rule them. We think that we- 
 shall better promote civilisation if we show that man is the 
 last step of an advancing progress, than if we isolate him in 
 the universe and leave him to rule a world bare of intelli- 
 gence and of emotion." Equally well does the same author 
 speak in another place, wherein he argues against those who- 
 above all things will not admit any comparison between the 
 intellectual powers of men and beasts : " It is clear 
 that we can only comprehend an intelligence, of whatever 
 kind it may be, 'when we can find its analogue in our own 
 intellectual life. This is a necessity of Animal Psychology 
 to which we must absolutely hold fast." 
 
 The promises made by the author at the close of the pre- 
 face of the first edition have been partly redeemed by the 
 issue, by M. A. Hofman, of Berlin, of the work on " Love 
 and love habits of the Animal World," as one of the pub- 
 lications of the " Universal Society of German Literature." 
 The author further hopes that he may have time and oppor- 
 tunity to fulfil the remaining part of his promise before 
 very long. It will doubtless interest readers of this volume 
 to hear that a Dutch translation has appeared under the 
 title of " Uit het Leven der Dieren, vertaald door R. E. 
 de Haan " (Nimwegen, published by Bloomert and Tim- 
 merman), and that a French translation of this third edition 
 will shortly be issued in Paris by Reinwald. 
 
 Darmstadt, March, 1880.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 HISTORICAL REVIEW. 
 
 THE question of mind in animals and of their intellectual 
 capacities as compared with those of men is as old as 
 man's thought ; it can scarcely be accepted as a brilliant 
 testimony to human philosophy and its progress, that the 
 different points of view from which this question has been 
 judged stand out against each other to-day with almost the 
 same distinctness as was the case some thousand years ago, 
 although lately the influence of the Darwinian theory, and 
 the more accurate knowledge of the remarkable facts of 
 heredity, have thrown a heavy weight into the scale of the 
 opinion hitherto rejected by the majority. This opinion 
 has been urged or denied less from scientific than from 
 egoistical motives ; it was feared lest man and his place in 
 nature should be lowered and degraded if animals were 
 allowed the possession of intellectual powers like or allied 
 to those of man. Just as if " our superiority over the 
 animals " (as Lord Brougham says in his '' Discourse on 
 Instinct") "was not great enough to banish and make ridicu- 
 lous every feeling of jealousy in this respect, even if we 
 regard the difference between ourselves and them as a ques- 
 tion of degree and not of kind." 
 
 There was indeed in their exceedingly slight knowledge 
 of animals and of their habits an excuse for the philosophers 
 of antiquity, which cannot be admitted for the philosophers 
 of to-day. Nevertheless, Anaxagoras, with philosophic in- 
 sight, calls man the wisest of animals ; Socrates calls him 
 a beautiful, and Plato a civilised animal. Their disciple,
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Aristotle who far surpassed his predecessors in scientific 
 knowledge approached more nearly to the solution of 
 the question, for he had caught a glimpse of the gradations 
 of organised beings. He sees in the minds of animals traces 
 of the properties of human minds and human reflection, and 
 maintains that the mind of the child scarcely differs in 
 aught from the mind of the animal ("Natural History,"" 
 Book 8). He regards the elephant as the most intelligent 
 of animals. The Roman Pliny, although too credulous, 
 does the same in relating wonderful anecdotes about 
 animals. Also the Roman poet, Virgil (70 B.C.), speaks 
 very lovingly in his poems about the breeding of animals, 
 and in describing the wonderful doings of bees declares 
 that a portion of the divine spirit dwells in these creatures. 
 Plutarch (B.C. 50) in his treatise on reason in animals 
 makes himself merry over the opinion taught in the 
 schools of the cynics and stoics and still defended to-day 
 that animals in reality possess neither emotion nor thought, 
 and that the identity of their actions with those of men is 
 only apparent. " As for those," he says, " who judge so 
 clumsily and are so barefaced as to maintain that animals 
 feel neither joy, nor anger, nor fear, that the swallow has 
 no forethought, and the bee no memory, but that it is a 
 mere appearance when the swallow shows forethought, or 
 the lion anger, or the hind timidity I do not know how 
 they would answer those who should say that they must then 
 also admit that animals do not see, nor hear, nor have 
 voices, but that they only apparently see, hear, and have 
 voices ; that in fact they do not really live at all, but only 
 appear to have life. For the one contention would not be 
 more antagonistic to manifest fact than is the other." 
 
 Plutarch seems also to embrace the opinion, about which 
 there is now so much controversy, that the difference be- 
 tween animals of the same race is not nearly so great as 
 that between man and man. 
 
 The great Roman physician, Claudius Galen, of Per- 
 gamus, whose system of medicine ruled the world for more 
 than a thousand years, gives it plainly to be understood in his 
 writings that he ascribes reflection and power of determi- 
 nation to animals, and that they only differ from men as to 
 degree. He also, like Anaxagoras, calls man the wisest of 
 animals.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 The first writer of the Christian era who troubled himself 
 about animals, and combatted their more and more strongly 
 emphasised inferiority to man, was Celsus, who lived in the 
 second century after Christ, and who followed the material- 
 istic philosophy of the Epicureans as adapted by the 
 Platonists. He fought with wit and acuteness against 
 Christianity, and also against the Judreo-Christian theory 
 that everything was created for the sake of man, and that 
 he was the final cause of the universe. He maintained, as 
 regards animals, that their bodies differed in no important 
 respect from those of men, and that in intellectual qualities 
 they were in many things higher rather than lower than 
 men, since they had a kind of intelligible government, and 
 observed justice and love. His proofs in support of this 
 argument he draws from the life of bees and ants and with 
 what justice the reader of this book will find abundant 
 evidence. 
 
 " If men," proceeds Celsus, " want to separate themselves 
 from animals because they inhabit towns, make laws, and 
 set up a government, yet all this proves nothing ; bees and 
 ants do the same. Bees have their king, whom they ac- 
 company and obey ; they have their wars, their victories, 
 their massacres of the conquered ; they have towns and 
 suburbs, regular hours of work, penalties for the lazy and 
 the bad ; they hunt and punish hornets . . . ." He 
 awards the same praise to the ants and to their prudence 
 and care for the future. They help each other to carry 
 heavy loads. " Out of the seeds and fruits which they 
 collect they put on one side those which have begun to sprout, 
 so that they may not affect the others, and that they may 
 serve as food for the winter." They speak to each other 
 when they meet, and do not mistake their road. Celsus 
 even thinks that they have their own burying grounds. 
 " If anyone were able to look down upon the earth from 
 heaven, what difference would he see between the works of 
 men and those of ants and of bees ? " 
 
 The Christian Middle Ages, enemy of all natural investi- 
 gation, could evidently make no peace with such theories. 
 In spite of the vigorous opposition of Rorarius, the learned 
 nuncio of Clement VII. to the Court of the Emperor 
 Ferdinand in Hungary, who brought forward a mass of 
 facts in support of the reasoning powers of animals, and
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 maintained, like Celsus, that they often put their reason to 
 a better use than did men, the Church upheld the contrary 
 view, going even as far as the famous, or at least notorious, 
 contention of the French philosopher, Descartes (1596 to 
 1650), which, as is well-known, takes away from animals 
 -all conscious feeling and emotion, and only regards them as 
 living machines, or as automata. Descartes, however, is 
 not the only holder of this opinion. He borrowed it from 
 a predecessor, the Spanish physician, Gomez Pereira, who 
 in his " Antoniana Margarita," published in the sixteenth 
 century, first maintained that animals had neither intellec- 
 tual feeling nor capacity of thought, and that, above all, 
 they had no minds, but were only machines controlled by 
 external circumstances. Descartes, whose whole philosophy 
 rests on the dualism of matter and spirit, admits nevertheless 
 that animals do many things better than men ; but they 
 therein follow, he asserts, only a blind instinct, or a 
 mechanical impulse communicated through their external 
 organs, just as a watch, an artificial machine, measures time 
 better than a man^ with all his intellect and reason. 
 According to Descartes, the feelings and emotions of animals 
 are an empty show ; a welcome piece of news for animal- 
 tormentors! " After the error of Atheism," says Descartes, 
 " there is none which leads weak minds further from the 
 path of virtue than the idea that the minds of animals re- 
 semble our own, and therefore that we have no greater right 
 to a future life than have gnats and ants, while, on the 
 contrary, our mind is quite independent of the body, and 
 does not therefore necessarily perish with it." 
 
 This extreme opinion made a great success in its time, so 
 that no man could call himself a Cartesian without declaring 
 that animals were machines. 
 
 Besides, the all-powerful devil of the Middle Ages got 
 mixed up in the matter, and was held to be the author of 
 the unmistakable manifestations of reason in animals, by 
 those who sought for some ground for them ; while, on the 
 contrary, others did not hesitate to impute this same author- 
 ship to the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, through 
 the mediation of so-called instinct, which God had im- 
 planted in the minds of animals for their preservation and 
 increase a guiding and irresistible natural propensity, 
 inborn, unchangeable, independent of experience and
 
 INTRODUCTION. O 
 
 training, and acting appropriately without consciousness of 
 the object aimed at. The word instinct is derived from 
 the Latin instinguere, to excite or to allure, and therefore 
 necessarily connotes an exciter or allurer. Therefore 
 Ccesalpinius says, very properly, from this point of view : 
 Deus est anima brutorum God is the mind of animals. 
 
 It is evident that under such circumstances the question 
 of the mind of animals could never become a scientific 
 study ; scientific investigation of the intellectual and 
 emotional powers of animals in comparison with those of 
 man, in fact comparative psychology, was impossible. The 
 subject was either dealt with as a mere collection of curi- 
 osities, an innocent amusement, an intellectual pastime, or, 
 more usually, the purely theological standpoint was taken, 
 and the endeavor was made to use this theme as so many 
 similar ones drawn from Nature merely as an object of 
 pious wonder. 
 
 The Cartesian theory had given rise to much controversy 
 in its time, and the hostile philosophy of Leibnitz, teaching 
 organic gradation and the unbroken unity of all living things, 
 both of men and of animals, had called up against it a host of 
 writers. The most important of these productions for our 
 position was the small work of Jenkin Thomasuis, published 
 in 1713, who supported against Descartes and in the 
 spirit of his own time and of Leibnitz the immateriality, 
 and therefore the immortality, of the animal soul. The 
 German editor of the book, Professor Bajer, also declared 
 against instinct, and held that among the various opinions 
 of the learned on the mind of animals, that which saw in 
 animals the analogue of the human mind was the most 
 conformable to man's natural judgment, and the most use- 
 ful for throwing light on animal actions. In like fashion 
 Professor Reclam, another author on the same question 
 (" Body and Mind," 1850, p. 384), wrote very well : " We 
 therefore conclude that we ought entirely to give up the ex- 
 pression ' instinct,' for we only can and should apply it to 
 such actions of animals as we can explain in no other way, 
 and we ought, remembering Kepler's warning, to seek 
 for every other explanation before we use a word so inde- 
 finite and so apt to mislead." In fact, those who deny this, 
 and who will not compare the intellectual faculties of 
 animals with those of men, must renounce all scientific
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 conceptions of these faculties, since there is no other rule 
 wherewith to measure them, and the word " instinct " as 
 will presently be further shown is only a paraphrase of 
 our ignorance, and depends in countless cases on demon- 
 strably false representations.* The French philosopher, 
 Condillac, the able tutor of the Infant of Parma, who, by 
 his victorious struggle against the innate ideas of Locke, 
 gave the death-stroke to the vanishing relics of the Car- 
 tesian philosophy, had used the argument against Descartes 
 that animals were far removed from machines, since they 
 felt like ourselves, avoided danger, gained expertness, and 
 supplied their own wants as did human beings. " Man is 
 wont to say," remarks Condillac, " that animals obey in- 
 stinct and man reason, without knowing what is to be 
 conveyed bv these two words. The actions of animals can 
 only be explained on three principles ; either as the result 
 of mere mechanism, or of blind impulse which neither 
 reasons nor judges, or as the outcome of something which 
 reasons, judges and understands. Since I have proved that 
 both the first explanations are utterly unsatisfactory, the 
 last alone remains." Linnaeus, Buffon who made the 
 admirable remark that we were compelled to marvel the 
 more at the intelligence of animals, the more we observed 
 and the less we theorised Voltaire, G. F. Meier (in his 
 famous " Search after a new system of Animal Intelligence," 
 1750), C. Bonnet, and many others spoke more or less 
 against the Cartesian philosophy. The last especially, an 
 excellent naturalist and a distinguished thinker (1770), 
 refers to the contrivances of insects, especially of wasps and 
 bees, and to the artistic talent of the beavers, which last 
 are brought in immediately after the bees. (!) 
 
 Even the Jesuit father, Bonjeant, who found so much 
 intelligence in animals that he thought it could only be due 
 to the help of the devil or devils, turned against Descartes 
 with the words: "All the Cartesians in the world will 
 never persuade me that a dog is a mere machine. Imagine 
 a man who should love his clock as a man loves his dog, 
 and who should pet it because he believed it loved him and 
 was of opinion that it struck the hours consciously and out 
 
 * Compare on this point the admirable treatment of the mind of 
 animals, by L. H. Morgan, in " The American Beaver and his Works," 
 p. 148, etc.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 of friendship for him. Yet, if Descartes be right, that is 
 exactly the absurdity committed by all those who believe 
 that their dog is faithful to them and loves them. I see 
 how my dog runs to me when I call him, caresses me when 
 I coax him, trembles and runs away when I threaten him, 
 obeys when I order him, and how he exhibits all the out- 
 ward signs of the distinct emotions of joy, grief, pain, fear, 
 desire, love, and hate. " And if all the philosophers in the 
 world should come and try to convince me, I should never 
 be able to persuade myself that an animal is a machine ; 
 this feeling will always set men against the philosophy of 
 Descartes." 
 
 The great fable-teller, La Fontaine, has made fun of the 
 Cartesian theory of animal-machines in several admirable 
 poems (the fables of the two rats, the fox and the egg). 
 
 Descartes, however, found his most distinguished oppo- 
 nent in the French Inspector of Forests, G-. Leroy, who, in 
 consequence of his office in the royal gardens and forests 
 at Marly and Versailles, had good opportunities of observ- 
 ing dogs and wood-animals. In the time of Leroy and 
 Buff on, the question of the intelligence of animals had been 
 for a hundred years and more a question of pure philosophy 
 and speculation ; it only entered into the circle of experi- 
 mental observation with these two investigators. The first 
 letters of Leroy who was one of the famous French Ency- 
 clopaedists on the intelligence and perfectibility of animals, 
 were published in 1764, under the name of a " Nuremberg 
 Physician ;" Leroy at that time would have been in danger 
 of a prosecution by the Sorbonne, had he sought to prove 
 that animals were not mere machines, but that they possessed 
 all the marks of reason and improveability, as well as of 
 feeling, thought and prudence. Want and need, fear and 
 danger, and so on, are, with him, the guiding springs of the 
 intellectual development of animals, which, as for example 
 the wolf, communicate with each other, often hunt in 
 packs, discover snares and utilise experience. With use, 
 says Leroy, reason grows in animals, and the capacity of 
 employing their minds ; there is a very great difference 
 between a young and an old wolf or fox. The young 
 animals, partly from lack of reflection and experience, 
 partly from overmastering timidity, commit a number of 
 mistakes which the old ones avoid. The dog especially, 
 
 B 2
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 owing to the chase and to his contact with man, learns to 
 an extraordinary extent, and thinks out particular tricks for 
 trapping game. According to Leroy, animals must have a 
 common tongue, however little we may understand of it ; it 
 is impossible that their various communications can be made 
 without speech, and they possess all that is supposed to be 
 necessary to speech, such as faculties of thought, com- 
 parison, judgment, decision, reflection, etc. Leroy had then 
 more accurate views about an animal-language than our great 
 language-investigator, Max Miiller, who calls speech the 
 Rubicon between men and animals which will never be 
 crossed.* 
 
 That which must most interest and astonish us in Leroy, 
 however, who quite ignores instinct and refers everything to 
 reason, is that he has already grasped the power and signifi- 
 cance of the transmission of qualities acquired during life, 
 and that he makes the important and fruitful remark: "that 
 all that we regarded as mere blind mechanism in animals, 
 was perhaps the result of long-since acquired habits which 
 had been handed down from generation to generation." P. 
 Floureus ("De 1'Jnstinct et de 1'Intelligence des Apimaux, 
 5 ed., p. 41) calls the investigations of Leroy the deepest 
 which had until then been made into the intellectual capa- 
 bilities of animals. After Leroy, it was the great naturalist, 
 F. Cuvier, who, by means of observations made on a 
 young ourang-outang kept by him in captivity, was led to 
 declare that an animal was able " to combine various ideas 
 in its head and to draw a conclusion from them ; " and this 
 
 * The voice organs of men and animals are similar in construction ; 
 there is neither anatomical nor physiological distinction between them. 
 Indeed, this organ in some animals, as in birds, possesses a flexibility 
 and an imitative power exceeding those of men. Animals communi- 
 cate with each other by means of tones and gestures, as do men ; in 
 both speech proceeds from imitation and hearing. Hence deaf people 
 are also stupid. If speech, as many philosophers maintain, were in- 
 nate in man, then men would speak even without hearing. The wild 
 amongst animals, and children growing up alone amongst men, do not 
 speak, but only utter cries, which are often almost the same in men 
 and animals, as for instance the cries of astonishment or of fear. Also 
 the language of primitive man has been much enriched by the imitation 
 of natural sounds, education through the ear (Onomatopoeia). Parrots 
 can be trained to talk just as children are. (See D. S. Wilks, in the 
 " Journal of Mental Science.") On the natural development or origin 
 of speech see further the author's " Man and his place in Nature."
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 although the unprejudiced sensational philosopher, Locke, 
 had doubted the capacity of animals for abstract thought, 
 and had laid just in this the distinction between animal and 
 human minds. 
 
 In spite of all this the old strife, whether animals were 
 machines or thinking and conscious creatures, went on as 
 vigorously and as indecisively as ever, and found great sup- 
 port in the ignorance of the laity, or the mass of the people, 
 who even down to th'c present day are more inclined to 
 embrace the Cartesian ideas than those opposed to them. 
 The great and famed era of philosophic speculation at the 
 end of the la<t and the commencement of the present cen- 
 tury mastered very little of this difficult question, owing to 
 its fondness of theoretic, and its dislike of experimental 
 methods. Even the great Konigsberg sage, by means of 
 whose learning many now strive so vainly to rebuild the 
 crumbled philosophy of the schools, stood helpless and 
 powerless before it, owing to his philosophical prejudices, as 
 before the question of the relations between the brain and 
 the soul, or the brain and the mind.* For him the animal, 
 like the plant and the mineral, is a mere thing, and is quite 
 excluded from right and morality, which belong only to men. 
 It has no reason, .no judgment, it knows no rights and no 
 duties, and is not capable of education but can only be dis- 
 ciplined. Man only owes to animals the duty of kindness, and 
 this not for the animals' sake but for his own. " And such 
 things were taught," cries Sheitlin, indignantly, "in the 
 Kantian primer of morality and orthodoxy fifty years ago." 
 
 From similar views about animals started Kant's famous 
 disciple, the philosophical idealist and metaphysical egoist, 
 Fichte, who, from the standpoint of so-called "pure reason,'' 
 declares that animals are things without freedom, per- 
 sonality, reason or rights. Philosophy, noblest and 
 highest of all sciences, how pitiable thou appearest in the 
 eyes of the lovers of Truth, when thou submittest to be led, 
 not by experience and fact, but by the clinging to precon- 
 ceived opinions, and by philosophic rules and axioms accepted 
 as eternally valid ! 
 
 Far better than Kant and Fichte did their noble and 
 
 * Compare the author's treatment of the brain in the second volume 
 of his " Physiological Types." (Loipsig, Thomas, 1875.)
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 talented contemporary, Herder, grasp the nature of animals, 
 whom, in his " Thoughts for a Philosophy of Human His- 
 tory," he calls with keen insight " the elder brethren of 
 men." Brain development and erect position have made 
 men into men ; yet in the animal-kingdom we see the rudi- 
 ments of all the higher moral and intellectual faculties of 
 man, such as reason, speech, art, freedom, etc. 
 
 With this last declaration, Herder approaches very nearly 
 the standpoint of modern thought, which no longer recog- 
 nises in animals a difference of kind, but only a difference 
 of degree, and which sees the principle of intelligence 
 developing through one endless and unbroken series, 
 gradually and slowly, by way of countless acquisitions, 
 inheritances, and transmissions, from its lowest stage to its 
 highest. " The principle exists without doubt," says the 
 anti-materialist, Agassiz, on this point (" Treatise on 
 Natural History," U.S.A.), " and whether it be called 
 soul, reason, or instinct, it displays in the whole series of 
 organised beings a succession of closely interwoven pha3- 
 nomena." According to Huxley, the admirable English 
 naturalist ("Natural History Review, 1861"), no impartial 
 judge can doubt that the roots of all those great capabilities, 
 which give to man his immeasurable superiority over all 
 other living things, can be traced deep into the animal 
 world.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " INSTINCT." 
 
 FROM this standpoint the study of the intellectual 
 capabilities of animals is of a far other and of a far 
 deeper significance than of old, when, as already stated, it 
 was generally regarded and treated rather as a pastime, or 
 as hunting out anecdotes for amusement, or as adorning 
 theological and teleological disquisitions, than as a scientific 
 system. For if it be true that organic gradations form an 
 unbroken series, and that man himself is compelled to trace 
 his origin to a set of lowly organised forms, as is main- 
 tained by the theory of development and descent now- 
 more and more accepted then is it further clear that 
 not only the bodily, but also the mental powers of man must 
 have the same origin, and intellectual development must be 
 regarded as a common quality of organised matter. Com- 
 parative anatomy, i.e., the study of bodies, which we have 
 long followed, must necessarily have beside it comparative 
 psychology, the study of minds ; indeed the former must 
 find in the latter its true completion. " The study of the 
 special mental science of man, which is the groundwork of 
 universal mental science," says a more recent writer on the 
 subject (T. Bignoli : " On the fundamental law of intelli- 
 gence in the animal kingdom," p. 25), "requires this 
 
 foundation a comparative psychology of animals is 
 
 unattainable .... if this same psychical power is not 
 studied in the whole of intelligent life. The animal king- 
 dom is, so to speak, without a head, and man without feet 
 
 on which he can stand The science of comparative 
 
 anatomy and psychology is therefore senseless and cannot be 
 understood, unless it be crowned with the still more fruitful 
 science of the study of mind in animals." 
 
 This claim and this deduction are so clear and irrefragable
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that Darwin himself, in his famous book on the " Descent 
 of Man," did not begin, as might be expected, with the 
 comparison of anatomical or physiological observations, but 
 with a digression upon the gradual development of intel- 
 lectual powers in animals ; he well understood that if he 
 were to succeed in proving the animal descent of man, or 
 even in showing it to be possible, the objection would still 
 remain that man, so far as his mental faculties were con- 
 cerned, was nevertheless entirely and essentially different 
 from the rest of nature. And, although the great naturalist 
 had at his command comparatively small and poor materials 
 (in reality they are far more numerous and more con- 
 vincing), it was yet not difficult for him to find and point 
 out the rudiments, the roots, in animals of nearly every 
 intellectual and moral capacity found in man. For the rest, 
 this digression, like everything written by Darwin, is ad- 
 mirable, rich in facts and in striking deductions and obser- 
 vations, although Darwin here, as in his other writings, 
 uses always the mischievous term " instinct ; " this word 
 leaves room for so much misapprehension, that it should be 
 entirely avoided in scientific books, for, as Dr. Weinland 
 well points out, it is nothing but a lazy way of escaping from 
 the laborious study of animal intelligence. 
 
 " It is as though there were some witchcraft in the word 
 'instinct,'" says Umbreit, in his "Science of Psychology" 
 (1831); "for with the phrase 'It is instinct,' all search 
 after the manifestations of the intelligent life [of animals] 
 is stopped as if by an anathema." 
 
 " The distinction between intelligence and instinct," says 
 J. Franklin, " is now given up by all schools which have 
 examined facts. There is intelligence in animals and 
 instinct in man." 
 
 " Instinct," says Dr. F. C. Noll, in an admirable treatise 
 on the manifestation of so-called instinct (Frankfort, 1876), 
 " is merely an empty word, a veil for our ignorance or 
 indolence." 
 
 Darwin does not, of course, use the word instinct in the 
 old sense of an inexplicable and unchangeable impulse, 
 springing from an unknown source ; he uses it to describe 
 an inherited influence or tendency, originally acquired 
 through adaptation or natui'al and sexual selection, and 
 habits or capabilities of thought transmitted from generation
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 to generation. This is the only sense in which the word 
 can be now used by educated people ; in this sense, clear 
 manifestations of instinct play a very important role in 
 man's life, as in that of animals, although its influence is 
 stronger and more apparent in the latter. It has, therefore, 
 always aroused man's wonder, and led him, since he could 
 not explain its origin, to the useless and foolish notion of an 
 "instinct;" just in the same way, our ancestors, as they 
 could not explain the rising of water against gravity into an 
 exhausted receiver, ascribed it to nature's horror vacui, 
 abhorrence of a vacuum, or as uneducated and thoughtless 
 people now refer the origin of life to a special " vital 
 force." That nothing is made clearer by such subterfuges, 
 but that the whole question is made darker by the encourage- 
 ment thus given to obscurity and mental sloth, must be 
 seen by all. Shakspere jeers very bitterly at instinct when 
 he makes Falstaff say in excuse for his senseless cowardice : 
 " Instinct is a great matter ; I was a coward on instinct." 
 
 Man, indeed, by a careful study of animal intelligence, 
 by experience and observation, is led step by step to note 
 manifestations and facts, and thus the conception of instinct 
 is shown to be inconsistent, and is shattered in pieces ; that 
 is, if instinct be used in the generally accepted sense of an 
 inborn, inherited, unchangeable and therefore never erring 
 impulse of nature, bestowed for the preservation and pro- 
 pagation of animals, the manifestations of which are uncon- 
 scious and purposeless. Accurate study shows that the 
 greater part of the actions attributed to instinct may be 
 understood in a very different an r l more natural way, as 
 arising sometimes from true consideration and free choice, 
 sometimes from experience, instruction and training, from 
 practice or imitation, sometimes from a special development 
 of a sense, as smell, sometimes from habit and organi- 
 sation, from reflection, etc., etc. For instance, when the 
 caterpillar uses the thread given him by nature for spinning 
 his cocoon, to let himself down from a tree and to escape 
 thereby from his pursuer; when caterpillars, shut up in 
 cases, tear off and use for their chrysalis the paper with 
 which these cases are lined ; when the toad eats a great 
 quantity of ants which it cannot digest, because they suit 
 its taste, although it knows that it is thereby drawing upon 
 itself pain and sickness ; when bees greedily eat honey
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mixed with brandy, although it makes them drunk and at 
 last unable to work ; when birds which build near human 
 habitations habitually utilise remnants of human work, 
 strings or woollen threads, in building their nests ; * when, 
 as has been observed by G. H. Schneider, lobsters in 
 captivity use bits of linen and paper to hide under, instead 
 of pieces of plants, although they use only the plants if they 
 are given a choice between the two ; when a bee, if a ready- 
 made set of cells be given it, leaves off building and 
 carries its honey into the artificial cells ; when a bird 
 escapes the labor of nest building by using a prepared nest- 
 box or by usurping the nest of another bird ; when, after the 
 same fashion, ants rob others of their nests and establish 
 themselves therein instead of making their own ; when 
 swarms of bees, instead of gathering honey, remove the 
 stores of another hive ; when many animals imitate the voices 
 and cries of others which chance to be in their neighborhood, 
 with the object of defence or of enticement ; in these, and 
 in a thousand similar cases, the relation of which would fill 
 a whole volume, instinct is an impossible cause or motive of 
 such actions. Why do animals of the chase more tfian 
 other animals fear men who carry guns ? Why does a 
 hound tremble if you point a gun at him ? Why do large 
 animals fear man more than do small ? Why do old birds 
 build better nests than young ones ? Not from instinct, 
 but from experience. AVhy does the fox rob the henroost 
 at a time when he knows the master or the servants of the 
 house are away or at table ? Not from instinct, but from 
 reflection. Why does the dog hide the remains of his food 
 that he may use it later ? Not from instinct, but from 
 forethought. When the chamois (like so many other animals) 
 set sentries to warn them of approaching danger, they 
 cannot have learned to do so by instinct, for chamois 
 
 * The Oriole, Ortofus galliu/a, according to Ponchet, now never 
 builds a nest without using scraps falling from man's industries, such as 
 threads, yarn, strips of leather, or even cords, watch-chains, etc. In a 
 wood near Mayence. where paper chases often take place, it builds its 
 nest (according to W. von Reichenau, " On Birds," 1876, p. 62) by 
 weaving the scattered bits of paper, fragments of letters, and journals, 
 with the long grasses of which its nest used to be composed. The 
 same thin? has been observed in the so-called "Baltimore Bird,' 
 (Jassicus Baltimore, in North America
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 hunters, against whom alone such farsighted prudence can 
 be directed, are much more modern than chamois ! 
 
 As already pointed out, unchangeability is one of the 
 great characteristics of instinct, and further, it cannot and 
 must not blunder in guiding animals for their good. But 
 there are countless instances in which instinct not only 
 blunders, but is excessively changeable and subject to alter- 
 ation under changing circumstances and life conditions. 
 The fleshfly, whose maggots live on putrid flesh, very fre- 
 quently lays her eggs on the leaves of the Stapelia hirsuta^ 
 a plant which is sometimes cultivated in hothouses, and 
 which has an odor of putrifying flesh. And flies, in like 
 fashion, take rotten leaves for carrion, on account of their 
 smell, and lay their eggs therein, although in both these 
 cases their progeny must perish from want of food. Here 
 the animal is not led by instinct, but is misled by smell, 
 which, looking at the circumstance that it has been 
 born and bred among such smells, is not surprising. In- 
 stinct blunders in the same way, if, as Brehm relates 
 (" Animal Life," 2 ed., IX., p.' 16), the pine-moth, whose 
 caterpillars eat pine leaves, lays her eggs on oak trees 
 growing in the neighborhood of pines ; or when, as Brehm, 
 the father, (" Life of Birds," p. 247) has seen, a siskin 
 leaves its half-built nest, because it has found, during its 
 work, that the boughs of the tree on which it has built grow- 
 too closely, and do not give it room enough ; or when the 
 swallow takes wet street-mud for clay and builds therefrom 
 a nest of brief duration ; or when great waterbeetles fling 
 themselves with suicidal force against the glass of a hotbed, 
 thinking it water ; or when birds try to drink shining pots- 
 herds ; or when young birds, who are old enough to begin 
 to eat alone, chirp at the food in the hope that it will then 
 of itself come into their mouths ; or when grazing animals 
 eat poisonous plants with which they are unacquainted, etc., 
 etc. " In the valley of the Ahn," says the distinguished 
 clerical observer, Snell (" Zoological Gardens," vol. iv., 
 p. 61), " from Michelbach to Langenschwalbach, and in 
 some neighboring valleys, grows very plentifully the 
 stinking Hellebore, Helleborus fa'tidus. The sheep of the 
 neighborhood know very well the poisonous properties of 
 this plant, and never touch it, although they graze constantly 
 on the hills and cliffs where it grows. But as soon as
 
 1 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 strange sheep, from a place where this poisonous plant does 
 not grow, come to Hohenstein, they eat it without suspicion 
 and poison themselves. Very many sheep bought in other 
 places have fallen victims in this way. There is then no 
 instinct warning the sheep ; they eat the flowers and flower- 
 buds of the hellebore, which are absolutely fatal to them, 
 more greedily than the leaves, which, as a rule, only make 
 them ill. This is the more noteworthy because the sheep 
 has not degenerated by being stall-fed, but lives in a half- 
 wild state." 
 
 According to the same observer (" Zoological Gardens," 
 vol. iv., p. 60, etc.), dogs learn to know their food by ex- 
 perience, partly by instmction from the parents, partly by 
 their own attempts, or by tasting. When he threw to 
 his pigeons oats mixed with the, to them, unknown buck- 
 wheat, they eat only the first and left the other. But when 
 they had gradually and forcibly been habituated to the 
 latter, they learned to like it so much that they left the 
 oats and picked out the buckwheat. Newly caught birds 
 must at first have food they know mixed with the so-called 
 cage-food, or they will die of hunger in the midst of the 
 greatest abundance. Nay, each individual animal makes 
 his own experiments and his own discoveries in respect to his 
 food, and of this our observer brings a number of interesting 
 examples, and proves that certain single individuals are 
 able by example and imitation to rapidly spread habits ac- 
 quired in this way. 
 
 That instinct, and even the strongest instinct, that of 
 food, can change in the most radical manner, is shown by 
 the example given by Dr. F. C. Noll ; a parrot, Nestor 
 notabilis, a native of the New Zealand Alps, which had 
 lived on flowers, and berries, and chiefly on insects, amused 
 himself with the meat barrels of the colonists, and then, 
 once accustomed to flesh food, took such a fancy to it that 
 he would not spare the sheep-skins hung up to diy, and 
 finally picked such big pieces out of the flanks of the living 
 sheep that the poor creatures died from exhaustion. Among 
 other things, as Brehm relates (" Animal Life," 2 ed., vol. 
 iv., p. 169), a flock of these birds pecked a sheep actually 
 to death by their united exertions, in order that they might 
 dine off it more comfortably. A similar fact is told by 
 Snell of a black cockatoo in Java, which learned to kill and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 eat porpoises ; he tells us also of the hen of a pair of ravens, 
 which acquired the magpies' habit of plundering birds' nests, 
 while the cock bird did not thus misbehave himself ; of a 
 coal titmouse, kept by him in captivity, which in default 
 of his usual worms, pieces of meat and so on, killed a 
 robin, eat it bit by bit, and thenceforward continued to 
 murder and feast on smaller birds ; and lastly of a Lammer- 
 geyer, Gypaetus barbatus^ which in some countries and places 
 is a bold thief and bird of prey, and in others, compelled by 
 circumstances, is a regular feeder on carrion. Brehm tells 
 us also of a parrot which killed and eat birds of its own species 
 or smaller birds. Reclam ("Mind and Body," 1859, p. 300) 
 watched flesh-eating squirrels and rabbits, which latter 
 gnawed like dogs bones which were thrown to them, 
 although they were never short of vegetable food. Yet 
 more striking is the instance recorded by Darwin of those 
 island cattle, which on islands where pasture failed them, 
 accustomed themselves to a fish diet an observation which 
 exactly coincides with those of Brehm on cattle in the 
 extreme north of Norway, which were fed on cooked fishes' 
 heads, and where the frames on which the haddocks were 
 drying had to be guarded againt the cows, because these 
 were wont to feast without ceremony on the half-dried fish. 
 Even horses will, under some circumstances, become flesh- 
 eaters, as in a case observed by Dr. R. A. Philippi, at St. 
 Jago, in Chili, wherein two riding horses belonging to a 
 Mr. Nicholas Paulsen would snap up and eat young chickens 
 and pigeons, pulling the latter out of their nests in a low 
 clay wall. 
 
 Another instance of a changed instinct : The so-called 
 hole-beaver, which, in consequence of the snares of the 
 hunters, cannot live in societies any longer as for instance 
 in France and Germany has changed from a social to a 
 solitary animal ; instead of its famous structures, the dams 
 built in the rivers (as in America), it digs itself simple holes 
 in banks, and barricades them, at most, with some logs 
 of wood. Thus, merely from stress of circumstances, and 
 in opposition to its supposed instinct, it has become a 
 digging and hole-dwelling animal, instead of a building one 
 living in the open. In a similar way the sable, as Radde 
 relates (in Brehm, vol. ii., p. 60), is, in the Barkal 
 mountains, owing to the hunters' traps, an animal that hides
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in holes and fissures, while in the Bureja mountains it seeks 
 hollow trees and avoids rocky crevices. So also with rab- 
 bits, which for several generations have lived where they 
 could not burrow ; the descendants of these non-digging 
 rabbits have lost the love or desire, formerly so strong in 
 them, of digging holes (Reclam). Darwin notes that the 
 Egyptian pigeons have changed, owing to the constant 
 neighborhood of the river, and have learnt to sit on the 
 surface of the Nile and drink from it like water birds. The 
 wolf, as Noll points out, is, in places where he is supreme, a 
 bold impudent robber, whereas he becomes a timid beggar 
 when he approaches cultivated places. The blackbird, 
 Turdus merula, was formerly a very shy bird, but in gardens 
 and in the suburbs of towns wherein it is spared and wel- 
 comed, it has become so confident that it builds its nest with 
 the help of bits of paper amid foliage where it is daily visited 
 by man, and takes its food from the windowsill in company 
 with sparrows. The ringdove, Columba palumbus, another 
 formerly shy bird, in Pfannenschmied, in East Friesland 
 (" Monthly Journal of the Saxon-Thuringian Society for 
 the Study and Protection of Birds," March, 1876), where a 
 suitable breeding place was wanting, nested in the direct 
 neighborhood of human abodes, and even in the most fre- 
 quented streets of the town. Dr. G. Jiiger ("In the matter 
 of Darwin against Wigand," p. 240) relates that he observed 
 a six-weeks old kitten, which possessed to so high a degree the 
 utterly uncatlike love of the bath, that he found it one 
 morning in his pan, and that no water vessel was safe from 
 it. The same observer noticed that each year a number of 
 young ones appeared among his oak- caterpillars, which 
 entirely lacked one of the most powerful instincts, that of 
 eating ; they would wander about restlessly over the food, 
 until they finally starved to death. In like manner we 
 often find suckling animals which lack the instinct of 
 sucking, and calves, which are generally taken away after 
 birth from the milch-cows, gradually forget how to suck. 
 
 The silver sea-gull, Larus argentatus, according to Audu- 
 bon, sometimes, against its instinct, nests on trees, and cer- 
 tainly the older birds do this on White Head Island and the 
 neighboring islands ; they formerly nested in the swamps, 
 and they must have changed after they found out that their 
 eggs were annually taken from them by the fishermen;
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 some of the younger birds, however, still nest in the swamps. 
 Bees, taken to the Barbadoes, lose their instinct of storing 
 honey, because they find food enough all the year long in 
 the sugar canes, while those in Jamaica, where the rainy 
 season prevents them from flying out for several weeks, 
 keep their instinct (Perty, " On the Intellectual Life of 
 Animals," 1876, p. 41). 
 
 People are wont to say of the cuckoo that its instinct 
 leads it to lay its eggs in strange nests. How comes it 
 then that the American cuckoo does not possess this instinct, 
 but sits on its own eggs ? or that there are also other birds 
 which sometimes or occasionally lay their eggs in strange 
 nests, in order to save themselves the trouble of sitting ? Or 
 what has instinct to do with it, when the ostrich, like many 
 other birds, leaves the business of hatching its eggs to the sun, 
 during the day, and only covers them with its body during 
 the cool of the night ? Or when the same bird, acting in 
 this way in Senegal, never leaves its eggs day or night at 
 the Cape of Good Hope, where the warmth of the air is 
 less ? Or when geese and ducks, in our moderate climate, 
 leave their eggs for awhile without any care, while the 
 same birds in the polar regions in such a case cover their 
 nests with feathers as a protection against the cold ? In a 
 similar way the Canadian muskrats, translated into a 
 wanner climate, cease to build their neat warm nests, and 
 content themselves with a mere hole in the ground. 
 
 One of the very famous instincts is that of the honey bee, 
 building six-sided cells ; a propensity which, as will be 
 shown later, has been, evolved in the most natural way. 
 But that this is not unchangeable, is shown by the fact that 
 bees guide themselves by circumstances, and give the cells 
 another or an imperfect shape when insuperable obstacles 
 are in their way. Darwin has also often observed, that 
 cells which had to be built in a corner or in some incon- 
 venient place, were repeatedly pulled down and built up 
 again until the architect was satisfied. The examples of 
 the change and of the improvement by circumstances in the 
 building instinct and other tendencies a fact which is 
 utterly opposed to the conception of an instinct are so 
 numerous in the insect world that Blanchard, in his great 
 work on the changes and habits of insects (Paris 1868) 
 wrote :
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Instinct by itself ought always to guide individuals of the- 
 same kind to the same work. But suppose there are dif- 
 ficulties in the way of the completion of the work ? The 
 individual removes the hindrance ; he selects the best place 
 for his dwelling ; he guards against accident, he meets 
 danger. Sometimes he gives way to sloth, and builds no 
 house, but steals someone else's, and scarcely ever improves 
 it. The insect, believed by man to act as a machine, gives 
 proof at every moment that it takes note of the situation in 
 which it finds itself, and of a crowd of accidental circum- 
 stances which it was impossible to foresee. But to take 
 note of a difficult position, to improve it, to make a choice, 
 to take a thing in order to save oneself trouble, to be 
 lazy when one is made for industry, is this instinct ? 
 Impossible ! " 
 
 In the same way speaks C. Menault, in his admirable book 
 on " Intelligence in Animals" (Paris, 1872, p. 114): '" What ! 
 creatures that have faculties, that feel, remember, and com- 
 pare their feelings, that express themselves in a more or less 
 distinct fashion, but ever in sympathy with their emotions 
 of joy, grief, auger, or passion such creatures have no 
 intelligence ? By God, I should then like to know what 
 intelligence is ! " 
 
 Note also what Wallace, the thought-colleague of Dar- 
 win, brings forward in his " Natural and Sexual Selection " 
 (1870), on the many changes and alterations of a very 
 powerful instinct, namely the nestbuilding instinct of birds, 
 in consequence of change of circumstances. " The orchard 
 oriole of the United States," says Wallace, " offers us an 
 excellent example of a bird which modifies its nest according 
 to circumstances. When built among firm and stiff 
 branches the nest is very shallow, but if, as is often the 
 case, it is suspended from the slender twigs of the weeping 
 willow, it is made much deeper, so that when swayed 
 about violently by the wind the young may not tumble out. 
 It has been observed also, that the nests built in the warm 
 southern states are much slighter and more porous in texture 
 than those in the colder regions of the north. Our own 
 house-t-parrow equally well adapts himself to circumstances; 
 when he builds in trees, as he, no doubt, always did 
 originally, he constructs a well-made domed nest, perfectly 
 fitted to protect his young ones ; but when he can find a
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 convenient hole in a building or among thatch, or in any 
 well- sheltered place, he takes much less trouble, and forms 
 a very loosely built nest." Our little golden- crested wren also 
 changes his nest to suit circumstances : he builds a simple 
 cup-shaped nest, where a natural canopy of sheltering 
 leaves is to be had, and in more exposed situations he 
 builds a spherical nest, with an opening at the side. 
 
 The little bittern, Ardetla minuta, according to Brehm, 
 ("Pictures from the "Animal World," p. 158) is wont to 
 build his nest on old reed straw, or on reeds standing over the 
 water, or on an over-hanging willow. If it floats, as at 
 other times, on the water itself, it is then only loosely 
 attached to the reed, so that it may rise and fall with the 
 water. 
 
 A remarkable instance of a change of instinct is recorded 
 by Wallace as lately happening in Jamaica. " Previoiis to 
 1854 the palm -swift, Tachornis phcenicobea, inhabited ex- 
 clusively the palm trees in a few districts in the island. A 
 colony then established themselves in two cocoa nut palms 
 in Spanish Town, and remained there till 1857, when one 
 tree was blown down, and the other stripped of its foliage. 
 Instead of now seeking out other palm trees, the swifts drove 
 out the swallows which built in the Piazza of the House of 
 Assembly, and took possession of it, building their nests on 
 the tops of the end walls, and at the angles formed by the 
 beams and joists, a place which they continue to occupy in 
 considerable numbers. It is remarked that here they form 
 their nests with much less elaboration than when built in 
 the palms, probably from being less exposed." 
 
 Birds especially, which build their nests on or in human 
 dwellings, buildings, etc., have largely changed their method 
 of building to suit the changed circumstances, and have so 
 changed it as to save their work and pains. In the same 
 way the lake dwellers, who formerly lived 'over the water, 
 carried on to dry ground their fashion of building on 
 piles, although the fashion had no longer any reason ; while, 
 on the contrary, over the whole American continent the 
 houses of the natives are built in a way which was suit- 
 able to the cold climate whence the Indians originally came. 
 Wallace finds himself led by his investigations to say : "I 
 believe, in short, that birds do not build their nests 
 by instinct ; that man does not construct his dwelling by 
 
 c
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reason ; that birds do change and improve when affected by 
 the same causes that make men do so ; and that mankind 1 
 neither alter nor improve when they exist under conditions, 
 similar to those which are almost universal among birds." 
 
 Quite irreconcilable with the instinct theory is the fact 
 alluded to, that so many birds instead of building their 
 nests, according to instinct, take possession of ready-made 
 nests or holes, and make themselves at home therein. Thus 
 the puffin, Fratercula arctica, uses rabbit holes, after it has 
 turned out the rightful owners, and only decides to erect an 
 underground building on its own account if the other does 
 not suit it. The swift, Cypsehts apus, on its return in 
 spring time from warmer climes, ejects from its wonted 
 resorts sparrows, starlings and redstarts, and settles itself 
 down at home, using for its own purposes the stuff gathered 
 together for nests. The eggs and the unfledged young of 
 the legitimate owners are thrown out without mercy. That 
 the nest-building of birds does not rest on mere instinct is 
 further shown by the fact that, as already mentioned, old 
 birds build better nests than do young ones, and that young 
 birds brought up alone in cages either build very bad ones. 
 or no nests at all.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 28 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " INSTINCT " (Continued). 
 
 IT results from all the facts stated, that as regards the 
 instincts of birds a mass of tales and fancies have been 
 generally and hastily believed, which have been carelessly 
 repeated from one to the other without any trouble being 
 taken to verify them, which really have not been 
 proved, and which are shown by accurate observation to be 
 either quite erroneous or at least very much exaggerated. 
 As a common-place example of this kind may be cited the 
 well-known instances, generally esteemed as proofs of in- 
 stinct, as to poultry and ducks. It is said that young chickens, 
 when they have developed to their full size in the egg, 
 break their shells, quit them, and at once stand on their 
 feet, run, and peck grain and insects from the ground ; thus 
 arises a whole series of very complicated motions, directed 
 to a certain aim, without any teaching, example or ex- 
 perience coming in. Just the same is told of young ducks, 
 which in addition give an especial proof of instinct, in that 
 as soon as they leave the eggshell, they run to the water 
 and swim about therein. This last feat is said to be done 
 by young ducks hatched under hens, which therefore cannot 
 be led to swim by any maternal allurement, and the poor 
 foster-mothers are said to stand in despair, because they see 
 their nurslings torn from their protection, and are not able 
 to follow them. 
 
 This all seems so natural that it is generally accepted 
 without demur, and would indeed, were it true, scarcely 
 seem to leave doubtful the existence of instinct in the earlier 
 accepted sense. But, in reality, matters are very different. 
 That which occurs immediately before the escape of the 
 chicken from the egg does not depend on the independent 
 action of the young bird, but takes place in quite mechanical 
 
 c2
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fashion, and as the result of a series of unconscious, or 
 so-called reflex movements, which are caused by the fact 
 that from twenty-four to thirty-six hours before hatching 
 the chicken begins to breathe, and at last requires more air 
 than can pass through the shell. Hence arises a great 
 danger of suffocation, and in conseqirence of this strong 
 reflex action takes place, by means of which the chick is 
 caused to strike, pr push violently against the inner wall of 
 the shell with a sharp bony point formed on the beak, and 
 the whole body is stretched and extended. Pressure is 
 caused by the natural growth of the body within, and the 
 breaking of the shell cannot long be delayed. 
 
 But when the chicken is out of its shell it is far from 
 running about and picking Tip corn. It generally lies for 
 about two hours helpless on its stomach, and neither eats 
 nor pecks, even though a grain of corn be placed in its beak. 
 It then begins to make feeble attempts to move, in which it 
 at first uses its wings just as though they were crutches. It 
 gets up,- falls down again, falls down and gets up, so that its 
 motion looks more like slipping than running. If a noise 
 is made near it, for instance if anyone knocks a table with 
 the finger, it turns to the side of the noise, and this is not 
 surprising, as its ear has already to a small extent been used 
 within the shell. During the next six hours, the chick 
 gradually gains strength and practice enough to run, and it 
 also begins to peck at the ground, but blindly and sense- 
 lessly; for it pecks at everything which reaches its eye, such 
 as little lumps of earth, heads of nails knocked into the 
 boards, grains of sand, and glass-beads, and even at mere 
 bright specks which may have been brought on to the table 
 or slate shelf among the chalk. This is done also by grown 
 poultry, which are frequently seen to peck at the ground 
 although there is nothing there to pick up. They also, like 
 the chickens, peck at pieces of chalk, until experience has 
 taught them that it is useless. Even poultry from which 
 the cerebrum has been removed, and which are therefore 
 without consciousness and without feeling, strike mechani- 
 cally with their beaks on the ground without picking up 
 corn. ju.t in the same way as human babies try to put into 
 their mouths whatever is given them. It ought not, there- 
 fore, to be surprising that chickens should do the same, 
 especially when imitation of the pecking mother comes into
 
 INTRODUCTION. 2 
 
 play. That imitativeness and the teaching of the mother 
 have a very large share in the whole concern is proved by 
 the fact that the whole recorded process, until the chick is 
 able to run and feed itself, takes only from five to eight 
 hours, if it remains with and under the care of the mother, 
 while it takes from eight to sixteen hours if the chick be 
 taken away from the mother immediately after hatching. 
 
 The ducklings begin life just as do the 'chickens. They 
 easily fall over on their backs and cannot get up without 
 help. At first they neither eat nor peck, even if their beaks 
 are pushed into moistened meal. As to their immediate 
 running to the water, this is so little true that they far more 
 often anxiously try to get out of the water when they are 
 thrown into it. They do not drink of their own accord, but 
 learn to do so gradually if their beaks are held in the water. 
 When they are givten drink in a cup they take it very 
 clumsily, often touching the edge of the cup with their beak 
 instead of the water. When they have learned to drink, 
 they peck at a shining slate-shelf as if it were water. That 
 other birds also have to learn to drink is shown by an obser- 
 vation kindly sent to the author by Frau Huge of Schwerin. 
 Frau Ruge saw a hen-pigeon with three newly fledged 
 young take them to the edge of a water-tub and teach them 
 to drink with great trouble. The whole process, the inci- 
 dents of which are very well told by Frau Ruge, lasted a 
 full hour. 
 
 Ducklings, like chickens, turn to the side where a noise is 
 made ; for example, to the side where anyone is speaking or 
 where other ducklings are chirping. They gradually learn 
 to walk by constant stumbles and falls, and also peck at 
 nails, bits of chalk, etc. They behave just in the same way 
 in the open. If they are brought to a pond they will go and 
 drink, but will not go in. If they are placed in deep water 
 they try to get out of it as quickly as possible, and therefore 
 make active movements with their legs, which necessarily 
 propel them, and, as an animal cannot sink, look like the 
 movements of swimming. Dr. Stiebeling of New York, 
 from whose admirable work " On the Instinct of Poultry 
 and Ducks" (New York, 1872,) we have borrowed the 
 above observations, noticed this in birds of one or two days 
 old, and even in those of eight days of age when they had 
 not left the coop, and, indeed, especially in these. Only
 
 26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 gradually do the little creatures accustom themselves to 
 losing the solid ground from under their feet. If the duck- 
 lings be hatched under a hen they take much longer before 
 they become used to the water than if hatched under a duck, 
 for the latter, like all water-birds, takes her young on her 
 back, and, swimming out, she shakes them off into the water. 
 When the ducklings reach dry land again, they shake them- 
 selves and try to clean the water off. This, as well as the 
 fact that if they are given milk instead of water exactly the 
 same incidents are observed, proves that we ought not to 
 speak of ducks having an instinctive love of the water, even 
 though there can be nothing surprising in their having an 
 inclination to an element in which their parents and ances- 
 tors have been at home from time immemorial. 
 
 This thoroughly coincides with the facts kindly communi- 
 cated to the author by Herr Julius Tape of Szegzard, (Hun- 
 gary) who lived long by the Danube, and had over and 
 over again seen that the goslings feared the water, until 
 they had learned to swim, and were, it might be said, 
 cheated into it by the parents. When the young are old 
 enough to be taken into the water, the old ones bring them to 
 the bank. The gander goes in front, cackling continually, 
 while the hen pushes from behind, cackling in the same way. 
 After a very short trial-swim the goslings are brought back 
 to the bank, and these trials are repeated from day to day 
 at increasing length, until the young go into the water of 
 their own accord. This gentleman has also observed that 
 when geese wanted to swim over from the opposite bank, 
 they never started from a point exactly opposite, but took to 
 the water much higher up the stream ; and they knew so 
 well how to calculate that when the wind did not interfere 
 with them they landed exactly opposite their owner's house. 
 If by chance a steamer was in the neighborhood, they 
 quietly waited until it had passed. 
 
 We cannot, then, talk about an innate love of water with 
 reference to these animals either. This may be said rather 
 of young turtles, of which it is told, and apparently truly, 
 that as soon as they escape from the eggs hatched in the 
 sand of the sea-shore, they run to the sea, and repeat this 
 even if they are forcibly turned back, or driven in an oppo- 
 site direction. But here it is clearly nothing more than the 
 scent of the sea which causes this action, and it is well
 
 INTRODUCTION. 2 
 
 "known that the sense of smell is far more highly developed 
 in most animals than it is in man. It is certainly not very 
 marvellous that young animals should follow the scent of an 
 element in which their parents and ancestors have lived for 
 unknown ages. This is yet more plainly seen in the far- 
 famed instinct of metamorphosed insects, which always lay 
 their eggs on places suitable for the nourishment of the 
 escaping caterpillars, without recognising these places abso- 
 lutely by their own sight. Here, without doubt, they are 
 guided in their action by the sense of smell, so highly 
 developed in insects, and perhaps also by some kind of 
 memory from their caterpillar or maggot condition. "The 
 Sphinx Euphorbia" says Noll, (p. 15,) "knows the milk- 
 wort by its shape more than by its smell. And why should 
 it not? Is it not the particular flower with which it is 
 thoroughly acquainted? Has it not itself in its growth, in its 
 caterpillar stage, lived always on this plant, imitated its 
 color, and nourished itself on this alone ? Has it not built 
 up its body out of its tissue, taken into itself its volatile 
 oils and its alkaloids? Do we not note how the land- 
 fly, which kills the caterpillar of the swallow-tail butterfly, 
 Papilio machaon, by stinging it behind the head, spreads a 
 strong smell over the carrots on which it lives ? It is also 
 known that the blood of many insects, and especially of 
 larvae, smells of the plants on which they feed. The 
 dancing butterfly, seeking honey as its food, certainly knows 
 what it enjoyed in its youth and where it lived ; for even 
 though its form be changed, though its intestines with their 
 peripheral nerves have disappeared with its transformation^ 
 yet the chief part of its central nervous system remains, as 
 has been proved in the transformation of caged insects, and 
 may therefore, have well preserved the youthful impressions, 
 which in man are indeed the most lasting." So the moth 
 finds its way into locked-up cupboards of clothes, which it 
 has never seen, merely by the aid of smell, and when we, as 
 a protection against it, put strong-smelling substances, such 
 as camphor, turpentine, etc., among the clothes, we do so to 
 conceal the smell of the woolstuffs by a stronger smell, and 
 so to deceive the scent of the moth. Of what great and 
 marvellous performances the smell of insects is capable is 
 proved by the well-known fact, that if, in the midst of an 
 inhabited place, we expose a female moth in the window, the
 
 28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 male will in the shortest time be led to it by scent from 
 places miles away. If such a female is even kept shut up in 
 a room, the male, led by the smell, will come to her via the 
 chimney, as Mr. Davis observed in England in the case of 
 the Sphinx populi. The same observer, later, on the occa- 
 sion of the emergence of the females of the Phalcena 
 bucephala and P. salicis found that the window of his 
 study was besieged by males who had been attracted by the 
 smell. Herr Liiders, of Attenburgh, relates that on acci- 
 dently opening a desk, in which a female Dispar had 
 emerged a year before, a male Dispar flew in through an 
 open window, and did this several times without noticing 
 anything else in the room (Reclam, p. 312 and 313). Darwin. 
 (" Descent of Man, ed. 1875, p. 252) records after Blanchard 
 (among a number of similar observations), that M. Yerreaux, 
 in Australia, carried the female of a little Bombyx in a box 
 in his pocket and was accompanied by such a crowd of 
 males that over 200 followed him into the house. 
 
 In this way, when they are closely looked into, are ex- 
 plained in the most natural fashion many cases of supposed 
 instinct ; in others, as in those of poultry and ducks, the 
 current stories are inaccurate. Doubtless such an exact 
 investigation as that of Dr. Stiebeling on the last-named 
 instincts, would show a similar result in apparently very 
 convincing cases, if people, instead of accepting stories on. 
 trust, would take the trouble themselves to test and observe. 
 " No one," says Wallace, "has ever taken the eggs of a bird 
 which builds a complicated nest, hatched the eggs by steam 
 or under some alien mother, and then brought the birds into 
 a large aviary, or covered place, wherein they should have 
 materials and opportunity to build a nest like their parents, 
 and then observed what kind of nest they would build. If 
 under these strict conditions they chose the same materials, 
 and the same situation, and constructed their nest in the 
 same way and as perfectly as their parents, that would show 
 instinct. But now this is only assumed, and as I shall 
 further show, is assumed without satisfactory grounds. So, 
 too, no one has ever taken the larvae of the bee out of the 
 hive, kept them apart from other bees, brought them into a 
 great enclosure with many flowers and abundant nourish- 
 ment, and then observed what kind of cell they would build. 
 But until this has been done no one can say that bees build
 
 INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 without instruction, no one can say that with each new 
 swarm some bees do not go which are older than those of 
 the same year, and which may act as teachers in the build- 
 ing of a new comb," etc. That bees and ants actually teach 
 each other, and that the younger do other and easier work 
 than the older, and have quite other instincts, will not long 
 remain unknown to the reader of this book. The beavers 
 also, about whose remarkable architectural skill so much 
 truth and so much falsehood have been written, instruct one 
 another ; and if we read in nearly all books on Animal 
 Psychology the well-known stories of the young beavers, 
 repeated and used for the hundredth time, how they are 
 taken from their mothers immediately after birth and 
 brought up artificially, and with materials provided in their 
 cage manufacture a dam after the most approved rules of 
 beaver-dam-construction, then, without making the experi- 
 ment, we may say decisively that the story is false, or at the 
 best much exaggerated. The young beaver, impelled by his 
 inherited tendency to build, may very well make attempts 
 to construct a dam, as, according to P. Flourens (pp. 53 
 and 185), one of the animals brought up by Cuvier 
 actually did ; but that a dam was constructed by it according 
 to all the rules of beaver architecture, without aid or in- 
 struction from its older companions, can be believed all the 
 less, since the beaver-trappers expressly assure us that, 
 according to their observations, young beavers stay no less 
 than three years with their parents in order to be instructed 
 by them. " The young ones," says Schmarda (" Intelli- 
 gence in Animals," p. 207), " live until the third year with 
 their parents, and are then sent to build for themselves." 
 On the other hand, the animal has so much intelligence not 
 ruled by instinct that it can turn its architectural ability to 
 special account according to circumstances. E. Menault 
 (p. 195) relates that a beaver, kept encaged at the Botanical 
 Gardens in Paris, one cold night, when the snow came 
 through the palings of his enclosure, built up his cabbages, 
 fruits, and twigs of trees into an excellent shelter against 
 the annoyance, weaving the tree twigs into the grating, and 
 the snow itself serving for mortar. 
 
 " On all sides," says Espinas, the distinguished author of 
 the " Treatise on Animal Societies," " it is admitted, even by 
 those least favorably disposed to animals, that the latter act
 
 30 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 individually, and from motives changing according to cir- 
 cumstances. This is one of the greatest results of comparative 
 psychology in the second half of this century, and the time 
 is near when no one will any longer dispute it." 
 
 There are certainly many actions of an instinctive kind, 
 but if they cannot be explained as the result of reflection, 
 imitation, habit, instruction, experience, and consideration, 
 or from a specially fine development of a sense, and other 
 peculiarities of organisation they depend in each case, as 
 has been shown, on propensities inherited from parents, or 
 mental habits and capacities, or, to put it anatomically and 
 physiologically, on inherited predispositions of the brain and 
 nervous system for certain psychical function-grooves 
 briefly, on what may be called inherited memories. These 
 tendencies and habits, perhaps even ideas of a certain sort, are 
 acquired by parents and ancestors during their lives in a defi- 
 nite manner, generally very gradually and in the course of very 
 long spaces of time ; these are transmitted, when they bring 
 or have brought advantage in the struggle for existence to 
 their possessors, and are handed down intensified from 
 generation to generation. Artificial breeding may wor.k in 
 the same fashion as do the struggle for existence and natural 
 selection in Nature. For instance, the well-known and oft- 
 cited instinct of the hound or the pointer is nothing more 
 than the lengthening by art and training of a brief pause, 
 which all beasts of prey are wont to make at the sight or 
 scent of their quarry just before springing at it, partly to 
 gather up their forces, partly to fix attention as strongly as 
 possible on the object to be seized. None the less must 
 the pointer puppy, which has brought with it into the world 
 a tendency to this action, inherited from its parents, be 
 trained into a perfect and useful hound by education, 
 punishment, and experience. In like manner is it with the 
 instinct or inclination of sheep-dogs to herd sheep, or of the 
 greyhound to course hares, or of the Newfoundland to rescue 
 men, as also with the love and attachment shown to men 
 especially by the dog, originally sprung from wild animals, 
 apparently from wolves and jackals. The famous migrations 
 of birds have only arisen gradually through a slow pressure 
 of cold from the poles to the equator, and are now continued 
 by transmission from generation to generation. Thence 
 comes it that migratory birds kept in cages grow uneasy
 
 INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 when the season of migration approaches, and beat their 
 heads against the bars of their cages, although it may 
 reasonably be doubted whether quite young birds, which had 
 not yet taken part in a migration, and had been kept from 
 all communication with their fellows, would show a similar 
 desire. Should they even do so as F. C. Noll (p. 22) 
 maintains of the nightingale without having had any pos- 
 sibility of communication with the outer world, it would 
 then be only the inherited tendency to migrate which seizes 
 the animal at the season at which his species migrates, as 
 the result of an inborn and inherited organisation of the 
 brain and nervous system. 
 
 It should the less surprise us that such inherited ten- 
 dencies or habits are found in animals since they are not 
 absent in man ; as many of the phenomena of intellectual 
 life in men show such a great likeness to those of 
 animals, it becomes necessary, if people will insist on the 
 existence of instinct, that the same explanation shall be given 
 of the former as of the latter. But indeed there is no such 
 thing as instinct, in the earlier application of the word, but 
 there is an unbroken series of intellectual gradations from 
 the lowliest animal to the highest man. " Instinct," says 
 Lindsay (" The physiology and pathology of mind in the 
 lower animals," 1871), "is not something separated from 
 and opposed to reason, but is rather a necessary conco- 
 mitant of the latter. Instinct and reason are merely different 
 stages of development, or differing manifestations of the 
 same capabilities, or of the same class of phasnomena. They 
 run into each other by such imperceptible degrees, that it is 
 impossible either to draw a decided line of demarcation, or to 
 find a clearly distinctive character. Instinct, like under- 
 standing and reason, is found both in men and in animals, 
 although in varying degrees or manifestations. It is very 
 difficult to distinguish innate from acquired capabilities, or 
 to separate the results of intuition from those of experience. 
 That which is an acquired capacity or property in the 
 parents, becomes generally an instinct in the following 
 generations, when custom has set on it its seal." 
 
 And the same author (" Insanity in the lower animals ") 
 says again : " I do not doubt that much of that which is 
 called instinct in animals is exactly the same as that which 
 in man is called reason, and has just as good a right to this
 
 32 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 title ; while on the other hand, that which is called reason in? 
 man is the exact counterpart of that which is called instinct 
 in animals, and ought so to be described. Little is known of 
 human instincts ; and indeed it is an expression which, 
 whether it be said of animals or of man, has hitherto served 
 rather as an asylum ignorantice, or a harbor of refuge for 
 ignorance, and a real hindrance to investigation." 
 
 " Do not let us speak of blind instinct," says Michelet 
 (" The Life of Birds," p. 3) ; " we shall see how this clear- 
 sighted instinct modifies itself to suit circumstances ; in- 
 other words, how these beginnings of reason are very- 
 little different in nature from reason in man." 
 
 E. H. Morgan, in his well-known book on the " American 
 Beaver and his works," (p. 275) puts the matter yet more 
 forcibly: " The expression ' instinct' should be quite turren- 
 dered as an explanation of the intelligent action of animals. 
 It is a metaphysical invention to make an essential difference 
 between human and animal understanding, and it is quite 
 impossible to explain thus the phenomena of animal intelli- 
 gence Animals possess an intellectual principle 
 
 which does them the same service as that of men to 
 
 men And as we are not able to make a difference 
 
 in kind between the phenomena of emotion, will, thought 
 and reason in men and in animals, we therefore come to the 
 conclusion that the difference is one of degree and not of 
 
 kind Healthy human thought which represents 
 
 far more than is generally admitted, the highest kind of human 
 understanding has never cordially accepted the speculations 
 of metaphysicians as to the intellectual capabilities of 
 animals. On the contrary, it has always been inclined to 
 recognise in animals the existence of a rational thinking 
 principle, analogous to that of man." 
 
 Many strong proofs of the existence of instinct in man 
 may be brought forward, using the word in the narrow sense 
 defined above. Only take, for instance, the instinctive lust 
 of murdering and destroying his own kind, developed in 
 individuals through the endless and bloody wars in the early 
 ages of humanity, and by the struggle for existence, and 
 continued indeed almost in its original strength in rough 
 or half civilised people, while among civilised nations it 
 has been brought within definite limits by law, custom and 
 reason. But that in spite of these it exists in its old power
 
 INTRODUCTION. 33 
 
 in the breasts of individuals and of very many and 
 is only prevented from bursting out by these restrain- 
 ing forces has, unfortunately, been sufficiently shown by 
 terrible outbreaks of violence, both private and public, 
 under special circumstance?. Long centuries of peace and 
 of usages, or political and social arrangements, directed to 
 tho common peaceful happiness and prosperity of all, will 
 alone be able gradually to eradicate this terrible propensity 
 or instinct of man's nature, largely developed by the inheri- 
 tance of thousands of years, and thereby create a better and 
 a happier world than the present. But a longer pursuit of 
 this theme and of the weighty thoughts surrounding it would 
 lead us too far beyond the scope of this work ; before 
 passing to this we will, therefore, only say a few words on 
 the importance of information on animal intelligence to those 
 Societies for the Protection of Animals, now so fortunately 
 established and flourishing. These societies are one of the 
 fairest signs of the humanity that rules to-day, although, on 
 the other hand, it seems sad that they should still be needful, 
 when six hundred years before Christ, the thoughtful creed of 
 Buddha taught the same principles, and preached gentleness 
 and kindness to animals no less than to man ; nay, it even 
 made it one of the duties of the faithful to build hospitals, 
 not only for sick men but for sick animals. Christendom 
 and Christian philosophy started from an entirely different 
 point, making a division, a tearing apart, of soul and body, 
 of man and animals, and necessarily thence arrived at prin- 
 ciples of harshness and cruelty towards the latter. But the 
 very existence of these societies proves that the better con- 
 science of man struggles against such views : it proves that 
 man does not see in animals mere breathing and vivified 
 machines, driven by instinctive propensities, but that he 
 recognises in these his brethren ; to put it shortly, men to- 
 day are better than their religion. 
 
 The results of these societies would, however, be much 
 greater if knowledge of animals and of their intellectual life 
 were fuller and better. Unfortunately, this knowledge, both 
 in respect to wild and tame animals, is still very poor and 
 imperfect, partly because very few have the opportunity of 
 themselves studying and observing animals, partly because 
 the perverted views of philosophers on the subject have 
 turned people's heads. Those who know animals really and
 
 34 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not only by hearsay will, as a rule, hold a very different 
 opinion ; they will see that the animal is as the author of 
 " Passages from the Diary of a Travelling Naturalist " 
 (1855), so well says not only physically but also intellec- 
 tually and morally ' ; a man in fragments," and that all the 
 intellectual capacities of man, including the highest, are 
 foreshadowed in animals, and hide therein their earliest 
 beginnings. This important truth cannot be better expressed 
 than by F. M. Trogel in his admirable " Causeries sur la 
 psychologic des animaux" (Leipsic, 185G) in the following 
 fashion : " The more man observes himself, and the more he 
 studies with a critical eye the smallest details of the new 
 and ever noteworthy phenomena of animal life, the more 
 will he be penetrated by the great truth that animals, like 
 men, think, will and feel. If we pass from the study of 
 men to that of animals, we are astonished to rediscover in 
 animals all that which we had before discovered in the in- 
 nermost recesses of man's heart and mind. At each step taken 
 in this unwonted sphere we meet surprise after surprise. 
 Sense and stupidity, craft and simplicity, good and bad 
 taste, kind heartedness and malice, gentleness and harshness,, 
 impetuosity and indifference, prudence and thoughtlessness, 
 gravity and frivolity, courage and cowardice, modesty and 
 boasting, unconcern and anxiety, fidelity and faithlessness, 
 inclination and aversion, love and hate, candor and 
 knavery, pride and humility, gratitude and ingratitude, re- 
 finement and coarseness, trust and mistrust, reason and folly, 
 compassion and severity, prodigality and avarice, temperance 
 and gluttony, hope and despair, wilfulness and pliability > 
 obedience and rebellion, grief and joy, anger and patience, 
 sloth and industry in short, the dispositions, the feelings, 
 the good and bad qualities of men, rise one after another 
 out of the great ocean of animal life ; there is revealed to 
 the astonished observer the perfect image of our whole 
 social, industrial, artistic, scientific, and political life." 
 
 That there is no exaggeration in these last words, and 
 that just those things which we regard as peculiarly human 
 the formation of a state and a society in its smallest details, 
 the art of building, husbandry, war, slavery, language, etc. 
 are represented to an almost incredible extent in the animal 
 world, is nowhere seen more plainly than in those minute 
 and little observed animals, which without noticing we
 
 INTRODUCTION. 35 
 
 crush by the dozen as we walk, and of whose marvellous 
 instincts Darwin has lately treated so impressively. Who 
 among our readers has not read Darwin's renowned book 
 on the " Origin of Species," and studied with astonish- 
 ment his observations on the so-called slave-making instinct 
 of ants ? The striking facts were indeed known long before 
 Darwin, and were accurately observed and made public by 
 the Genevan, P. Huber, at the beginning of this century. 
 But great as was the interest aroused by these publications, 
 they yet did not meet with the full and free acceptance from 
 the educated world deserved by their nature, owing to the 
 fact that man was still at that time quite under the yoke of 
 the oft-named prejudice touching the intellectual life of 
 animals. Now it is different, and Darwin's observations on 
 the slavery-instinct have specially aroused great interest, 
 because an institution is there concerned which has played, 
 and partially still plays, a large part in human culture 
 and development. But before we can speak of this we must 
 first deal with other matters concerning this wonderful 
 insect and its political, social and domestic arrangements 
 and customs.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE.
 
 ANTS AND AKT LIFE. 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 THE ants, in psychical or intellectual development, stand 
 without doubt, highest among insects, although the 
 better-known bees, with their highly-organised societies, 
 are unjustly allowed to challenge their position. Such a 
 challenge might rather come from the Termites, the white 
 ants of tropical regions (wrongly classed with ants), of whose 
 manners and customs enough is not yet accurately known to 
 enable us to make an exact comparison of their mental 
 capabilities with those of ants. Even the European ant, 
 although studied with the utmost accuracy by a circle of 
 distinguished observers, is not yet known with the exactness 
 merited by this marvellous insect, with its remarkable political 
 and social arrangements; doubtless future observers will 
 bring to light thereon many noteworthy and surprising facts 
 as yet unknown. 
 
 It will doubtless surprise many readers to hear that such 
 highly-developed intellectual powers and capacities are to 
 be found in so low a grade of animal life, and perhaps this 
 very circumstance will be enough to fill them beforehand 
 with a certain distrust as to the facts to be hereafter related. 
 But it should not be forgotten that the great subkingdoms or 
 divisions of the animal kingdom are not arranged beneath, 
 but beside each other, and that therefore the highest outcome 
 of a generally lower subkingdom may be, and is, bodily and 
 mentally, very much raised above the lower or middle grades 
 of a generally higher one. Thus the most perfect of the 
 Mollusca is much higher than the most imperfect of the 
 Annulosa ; and the most perfect of Annulosa is far higher 
 than the most imperfect of the Vertebrata, although the 
 Vertebrata in its highest members reaches the utmost per- 
 fection as yet possible. In fact, we may say without hesita- 
 tion, that an ant, which represents the highest type of the 
 
 D2
 
 40 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 highest division or class of the Annulosa, namely the 
 Insecta, is by its whole organisation raised far above the 
 lower classes of the Vertebrata, such as Pisces and Amphibia, 
 and by its mental capacity mounts as far as Aves, and as 
 the higher or highest Mammalia. Leuret, the distinguished 
 anatomist and naturalist, says of the ants, that they stand 
 highest among the Invertebrata, and that even among the 
 Vertebrata, excluding apes and elephants, there is none to 
 place above them. Their history, he says, is that of men. 
 They have a distinct language, they build dwellings with 
 windows, saloons, ante-rooms, partition-walls, pillars, beams, 
 etc. They give battle, carry on sieges, make prisoners and 
 slaves. They keep milch-cows, and show the greatest care 
 for their children. If we were no larger than ants or bees, 
 and they were as large as we are, they would perhaps regard 
 us as small, certainly very rational animals, but yet of less 
 importance than themselves. 
 
 Leuret's colleague and countryman, Professor Chr. 
 Lespes, of Marseilles, who has also thoroughly observed 
 the habits of ants, declares that they " deserve our thorough 
 sympathy," and recommends the study of them as " one of 
 the most attractive imaginable." 
 
 Professor A. Fee (" Etudes Philosophiques sur 1'Instinct 
 et ITntelligence des Animaux," 1853) places the Insecta 
 (and therein the ants in the first place) in the highest grade 
 as to instinct, and in the third as to reason, of the whole 
 animal scale. 
 
 No one has a better right to decide on the general place 
 of ants in nature and in the scale of existence, than 
 Dr. Augustus Forel, who, by his excellent work on ants of 
 Switzerland (1874) has trodden worthily in the footsteps of 
 his famous predecessor and countryman Peter Huber, who 
 first described the habits and noteworthy customs of the 
 ants of his own country in the year 1810,* and from whom 
 all later writers have borrowed more or less. The French 
 Blanchard, in his great book on the relationships, habits, and 
 instincts of insects (1868) speaks of Huber's work as a 
 " revelation." " It will ever remain as a monument of 
 patience and acuteness; his account of the facts bears 
 
 * " Pierre Huber ; Recherches sur lea Mocurs des Fourmis Indigenes." 
 Paris et Geneve, 1810.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 41 
 
 everywhere the stamp of a truth set forth with the greatest 
 attractiveness ; and the simplicity of the narration does not 
 veil the enthusiasm of the author for the little world he 
 studied so minutely." 
 
 Blanchard himself opens his chapter on ants with the 
 characteristic announcement, that although the lack of 
 trustworthy observers in former times gave free play to the 
 imagination, yet all inventions are utterly outdone by the 
 reality which we now know. 
 
 D. B. Graber (" Insects," Munich, 1879) calls ants the 
 coryphees or Primates of the insect-world, on account of 
 their highly-developed intelligence, their enormous numbers, 
 and their motto, " viribis unitis." 
 
 Forel, for his part, sets ants so high that he regards them 
 as being among insects what man is among Mammalia. 
 This would be most suitable as applied to the ants of the 
 tropics, although Forel's observations were confined to 
 native ants. " The role played by ants," says Forel, " in 
 Nature's economy in Switzerland is a very modest one, as 
 compared to that assigned to them in tropical lands. The 
 strength given to these little creatures by their unity and 
 intelligence is there shown in a surprising manner ; and the 
 tales of travellers on this matter mount often to tragedy. 
 The Brazilians are wont to say that the ants are the real kings 
 of Brazil, for they exert therein an almost unchallenged 
 rule." " There can be no doubt," Forel goes on, " that the 
 ants are the most intelligent of insects. Not Huber alone, 
 but also Ebrard, Swammerdam, Lepeletier, and the other 
 authors and writers who have taken the trouble to compare 
 their habits and customs with those of bees, find themselves 
 compelled to award them the palm. Their architecture is 
 less artistic indeed, but it changes according to place and 
 materials, suits itself to circumstances, and knows how to 
 utilise everything, while that of bees always remains the 
 same. Bees have no great trouble with their larva?, and 
 content themselves with carrying food for them into the 
 ceils. But the ants are obliged to feed their young from 
 their own mouths, to bestow on them lengthened care, and 
 to carry them from one place to another if there be a change 
 of temperature, and they have to do all this during several 
 weeks, while the bee-larva? only remain in the larval condi- 
 tion for five days. Further, the bee finds its own way out
 
 42 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 of its cocoon, while the ants generally (apparently always, 
 L. B.) need the aid of their companions. Lastly, the slave- 
 making, the keeping of Aphides as domestic animals, and a 
 number of other traits in their habits, are proofs of their men- 
 tal superiority over bees, whose customs are simpler and 
 more uniform. Especially do they surpass all other animals 
 by their social instinct, or tendency to association, which 
 shows a kind of collective or co-operative reason ; this is 
 indeed so great that we are involuntarily reminded of the 
 little hostile communities of primitive men, and are compelled 
 to think that the union of the individual intelligence of the 
 higher Mammalia with the development of this associative 
 tendency would have sufficed to produce man, with all his 
 capacities ; a thought which Darwin has followed out in 
 detail in the third chapter of his book on man. No other 
 animal shows such remarkable proofs of this associative 
 propensity as do the ants. Swammerdam (1637 1680) 
 compared the societies of ants to the early Christian com- 
 munities. And it may be said that the ants have shown us 
 a specimen of Socialism in practice, carried to its furthest 
 consequences. Labor is quite free and unenforced^ there 
 are no chiefs nor overseers. Each ant is ready at any 
 moment, without any kind of compulsion, to offer up his life 
 for the community." 
 
 " The similarity of ant societies to those of men becomes 
 especially striking if we observe the reciprocal relations 
 between the various colonies. There are wars, truces, 
 alliances, plunderings, robberies, surprises, tactics, stratagems 
 of war. Nothing fails there of all that which man is 
 accustomed to see. Especially remarkable are the alliances, 
 and the executions of enemies ; also the truces, which, after 
 repeated battles are arranged between two hostile tribes or 
 colonies." 
 
 Ants also show a great resemblance to men in the develop- 
 ment of their character. To their great attachment and 
 self -sacrifice for the commonwealth and for each member of it, 
 are united generally a hasty temperament, prone to furious 
 anger, and an unquenchable hatred against all foreign or 
 hostile colonies. Therewith are blended industry, perse- 
 verance, and often cruelty. Also gluttony is one of their 
 characteristics, as will later be more exactly shown : and 
 their love for a good meal is so great, that it is thus possible
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 43 
 
 to restrain their otherwise unconquerable desire to fight. 
 Nothing is more interesting than to watch this struggle of 
 two passions. If honey, of which ants are known to be 
 inordinately fond and for which they will generally leave all 
 other food, be placed on a battle field between two con- 
 tending parties, as for instance red and turf ants, some of 
 the warriors will be seen approaching and tasting it. They 
 never stay by it long, but quickly return to the fight. Some- 
 times these same ants, will turn back longingly twice or 
 thrice. 
 
 In some races (for example, Lasius, Tetramorium) gluttony 
 conquers the love of battle. We may also sometimes observe 
 hate of an embittered foe struggling with friendship for old 
 comrades, or fear and self-sacrifice for the community con- 
 tending together in their little minds. This is true espe- 
 cially of particular individuals. One ant will let herself 
 be killed, rather than let go the pupae which she holds, 
 while another will let them fall and run away like a coward. 
 
 The same thing is also true of particular species or 
 families. For while some are cowardly and fearful, others 
 show a fearlessness and a courage that make them a real 
 terror to other animals. " Nothing is more interesting," 
 says Forel, " than to pour out a sack full of turf-ants on to 
 a newly- mown meadow, and watch the fashion in which 
 they take possession of the new territory. All the crickets 
 fly, while the ants take possession of their holes ; the grass- 
 hoppers, ground-fleas, springtails, seek to save themselves 
 on all sides ; the spiders, chafers, staphylini, leave their prey, 
 in order not to become prey in their turn. Clumsy creatures, 
 or those who have lost their legs, or those which have just 
 emerged, are killed by the ants and torn in pieces. I have 
 seen a troup of turf-ants, which owing to the enlargement 
 of their colony were lengthening one of their tunnels, come 
 across the nest of a wasp, Vespa germanica, which had been 
 built in the ground. They promptly blocked up the opening, 
 and chased out the numerous inhabitants, not without losing 
 many of their own number. When the cockchafers prepare 
 to creep out of the earth in the spring, the turf -ants often 
 crawl into the little holes which are not yet large enough to 
 let the cockchafers pass, and kill them. Caterpillars, lob- 
 worms, crickets, larvae of every kind, fall a prey in similar 
 fashion to the different species of ants, Formica, Myrmica y
 
 44 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Lasius, Tetramorium, Tapinoma, etc. Even winged insects 
 are not safe from them ; 1 have often seen butterflies, gnats, 
 flies, and others which had entangled themselves in the turf, 
 caught and killed by the ants." 
 
 Even comparatively large animals are not secure from 
 their clutches, and are afraid of them. Moggridge, in his 
 interesting work (London, 1873 74) on the " Harvesting 
 Ants and Trap-door Spiders," of the borders of the Medi- 
 terranean, relates that the lizards are very fond of the 
 winged males and females of the ants and follow their 
 swarms, and that these are most gallantly shielded and 
 defended by the working ants : " When, as often happens, 
 the nest is placed in an old terrace-wall, one may see the 
 lizards creeping along or lying moulded into the inequalities 
 of the stones, all having their eager eyes directed towards 
 the swarm. One may then see the worker ants walk with 
 impunity straight up to the very noses of the lizards, while 
 the male or female which should chance to struggle in the 
 same direction would infallibly be eaten up. The lizards 
 plainly show their fear of the workers by the way in which, 
 when they make up their mind to try a dash at some out- 
 lying part of the ant- colony, they leap through the lines in 
 the utmost haste, as if traversing a ring of fire. Now these 
 worker ants are destitute of stings, and I can only suppose 
 that their power of combination, stronger jaws and more 
 horny coats, have gained them this immunity " (Supple- 
 ment, p. 162). 
 
 What dangerous and dreaded creatures ants are in tropical 
 countries will be shown later on. 
 
 Further, all these bodily and mental qualities vary as 
 much or more in different races, species and individuals, as 
 in different races and individuals amongst men. As Forel 
 says, there is a greater difference between a Plagiolepsis 
 pygmcsa and a Camponotus ligniperdus, than between a 
 mouse and a tiger ; and a colony of Lasius fulginosus com- 
 pared with one of Leptothorax tuberum, is as Paris 
 compared to a town or village. Strength, swiftness, the 
 power of defence and attack, the number of the population 
 of a colony, timidity, the time and frequency of swarming, 
 smell, love of war, architectural skill, and choice of locali- 
 ties, the art of feeding the young, the habit of day or night 
 work, and many other matters, vary, as Moggridge points
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 45 
 
 out, between the widest limits. The bloodthirsty and 
 murderous tiger-beetle, Cicindela, as is related by the same 
 author, bears himself very differently when he chases the 
 strong harvesting ants, and the small and weak Formica 
 erratica. He seizes and swallows the latter without 
 delay, while he is more than half afraid of the former. " I 
 have seen this beetle lying in wait near a train of 
 structor or barbara ants, watching until some individual 
 separated a little from the main body, when it would rush 
 forward and make a snap at it, retiring again as quickly as 
 it came. If the tiger-beetle fails to seize its prey exactly 
 behind the head it will let it go again, and two or three 
 ants are often thus cruelly mutilated before a single one is 
 carried off. No doubt the beetle has learned that if once 
 this ant clasps its mandibles upon either antenna? or legs, 
 nothing, not even death itself, will make it release its hold. 
 It therefore tries to pin the ant in such a way that it cannot 
 use its formidable jaws. Perhaps the habit of forming 
 long compact trains may have been acquired by the ants 
 partly with a view to guarding against attacks of this kind. 
 The colonies of the little F. erratica, on the other hand, 
 apparently have to trust to their habit of working under the 
 covered ways which they construct, as well as to their 
 activity and great numbers, for their preservation " (p. 1 64). 
 The most timid ant, according to Forel, of the species 
 Camponotus is the Camponotus marginatus, which scarcely 
 ventures to defend its nest, while the Camponotus pubescens 
 is the strongest and bravest. The largest of the workers 
 of the latter species compete with the famous Amazon, 
 Polyergus rufescens. The harvesting ants also are not able 
 to withstand the stronger Camponotus. Forel destroyed the 
 partition-wall which divided a nest of the Camponotus 
 (etkiops from one of the Atta structor. The latter were so 
 terrified that they fell a prey in the shortest time to the 
 nippers of their opponents without serious resistance. The 
 bravest species of ants are the above-mentioned Amazons 
 and the bloodred ants, Form, sanguinea, of whose battles and 
 robbery-excursions or slave hunts, exact details will be 
 given later. Most of the species of the germs Myrmica, to 
 which belong all the true harvesting ante, are dangerous 
 and brave, while the comparative intelligence of the above- 
 named bloodred ants appears to rise above that of all
 
 46 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 others. A very peaceful and gentle ant, which never 
 ventures on a combat, is the Botryomyrmex meridionalis. 
 
 The English naturalist, Sir John Lubbock, who has made 
 many careful attempts to investigate the character and 
 life-habits of ants, and who has published his results in the 
 Journal of the Linnaean Society (Zool. xii. and xiii. vols.) 
 was able to establish a great distinction in the behavior 
 of various individuals under exactly similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 As there are in Europe alone more than thirty genera 
 and more than a hundred species, and in the whole world 
 more than a thousand species of ants, sprung from the same 
 stock, it is easy to understand what a countless host of 
 differences in bodily construction, character, intelligence, 
 conduct, habits, manners, and so on, there must be differences 
 which it would take whole volumes to fully describe. We 
 will only concern ourselves here with the most remarkable, 
 striking, and best known species. 
 
 That the extreme intelligence of ants must be related to 
 a special development of their nervous system and especially 
 of their organ of thought, or brain, will be a matter of 
 course to the anatomist and physiologist, who knows that 
 the organ and the function or its action under given 
 circumstances must co-exist side by side. For others, 
 however, it is interesting and important to learn that the 
 brain of the ant is comparatively the largest in the class 
 Insecta, and is even more developed than that of the bee. 
 According to a table compiled by Titus Graber (" On 
 Insects," vol. i., p. 255) the volume or size of the brain 
 of bees is the 200th, and that of the so-called accessory brain, 
 or the "stalked bodies," [discovered by Dujardin, and 
 named by him corps pe'doncule's. See Annales des Sciences, 
 3rd series, Zool. torn. xiv. 1850. p. 200. TR.] the 1000th 
 part of the size of the whole body, of ants the 280th and 
 the 600th part, while the brain of the cockchafer, which 
 has no accessory brain, is only the 3000th part of its body. 
 There is doubtless, therefore, the same difference as between 
 men and the large mammals (horse, bull, etc.) which are 
 subject to men, in consequence of their lesser brain and 
 mental powers, although the latter are much smaller and 
 weaker in body This is also true of the huge elephant, 
 although its brain, corresponding with the size of its body,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 47 
 
 far exceeds that of man in development as to its bulk. 
 None the less are the cerebral ganglia of the ant which 
 ganglia in invertebrate animals take the place of the brain 
 proper to the vertebrate no larger in reality than the 
 quarter of the head of a pin, and the size again is of course 
 different in the different species. " Under this point of 
 view," says Darwin (" Descent of Man," ed. 1875, p. 54), 
 " the brain of an ant is one of the most marvellous atoms 
 of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of a 
 man." This fact shows at the same time " that there may 
 be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small 
 absolute mass of nervous matter." 
 
 But the brain of the ant, not only in its relative size, but 
 also in general shape and construction, is superior to that of 
 all other insects, and most resembles that of hive-bees and 
 the other socially-living insects of the same genus. At first 
 sight we are startled to find two large projecting hemispheres, 
 as in higher animals. If these are put aside, we find Dujar- 
 din's two " stalked bodies," surrounded by a cellular enve- 
 lope, which gives to each hemisphere its rounded appear- 
 ance. These stalked bodies are not so much developed in, 
 any other insect as in the ant, and are generally found to be 
 either rudimentary or arrested. Under these is found the 
 primitive ganglionic cerebral structure, which is common 
 to all insects. It is a single oblique body, in the middle of 
 a somewhat convoluted mass, and is covered by the lower 
 part of the stalked bodies. Right and left lie the optic 
 lobes, or centres of origin of the optic nerve ; in front and 
 beneath, the olfactory lobes. 
 
 The stalked bodies are not, as has been thought, centres 
 for the so-called ocelli, or accessory eyes, but stand in a very 
 decided relation to intelligence. They are very large in the 
 branches of the genus Formica, which includes the most 
 intelligent species ; they are largest in the most intelligent 
 of all the ants, the Formica sanguined, or blood-red ants, 
 and in the turf-ants, Formica pratensis. It is veiy remark- 
 able also, that the neuter workers as far excel the winged 
 males and females in the size and development of their 
 stalked bodies, as they do in the amount of their intelligence. 
 These bodies are the smallest in the unintelligent males. 
 
 It may be added that Treviranus had already proved that 
 all the social Hyrnenoptera, to which genus belong bees,
 
 48 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 wasps, ants, etc., are distinguished from other insects by a 
 more largely developed brain ; but that Dujardin made the 
 discovery that this larger development was due to the pre- 
 sence of these stalked bodies, which he described and which 
 were named after him. He also proved that they are con- 
 nected with intelligence, and almost or quite disappear in 
 insects with poor intelligence. He found them very large in 
 bees, comparatively larger yet in Formica rufa, the common 
 wood-ant, to which the turf-ants belong as a sub-species. 
 
 The anatomy and physiology of the nervous system of all 
 these intelligent insects, and especially of ants, needs, how- 
 ever, much more exact investigation than has as yet been 
 bestowed upon them, and would doubtless bring to light 
 many interesting particulars.* 
 
 Injuries to the brains of ants are followed by exactly 
 similar results as injuries to those of higher animals, and the 
 behavior of ants with injured brains is just like, or very 
 much resembles, that of men or other mammals suffering 
 from brain-lesions. First of all, any important brain-injury 
 causes spasms and a number of involuntary reflex move- 
 ments. Then succeeds a state of stupefaction, with ar> in- 
 crease of reflex action, in which voluntary and conscious 
 action fails. Thus an ant, whose brain has been perforated 
 by the pointed mandibles of an Amazon, remains as though 
 nailed in its place, a shudder runs from time to time through 
 its body, and one of its legs is lifted at regular intervals. 
 
 * Since the above was -written the author has become acquainted 
 with an enquiry into the brain of ants, by Rabl-Rtickhart, published 
 in Reichert and Reymond's " Record of Anatomy, Physiology and 
 Scientific Medicine," (1875, Vol. IV., p. 480,) which confirms and gives 
 accurate details on the statements in the text. According to this 
 writer, both the primitive lobes of the brain of the ant are covered 
 with helmet-like or fungoid prominences, which Dujardin found in all 
 social intelligent Hymenoptera, as bees, and which Rilckhart dis- 
 tinguishes as lobes with " convolutions or radial striped circles." 
 The convolutions he considers to be analogous with the convolutions of 
 mammalia. In these prominencea Ruckhart also found certain " ring- 
 like bodies " which consisted of peculiarly fine molecular matter. He 
 compares the brain of the ant to a vertebrate brain perforated by the 
 pharynx, which is of a strikingly higher type than the ganglia of the 
 other Annulosa. A good description of the ant's brain, with its com- 
 plicated anatomy, will be found in " Leydig's Tables of Comparative 
 Anatomy," I., VIII, Fig. 4; and the same is reproduced by Titus 
 Graber(Vol. I., p. 252)..
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 49 
 
 It occasionally makes a short and quick step, as though 
 driven by an unseen spring, but, like that of an automaton, 
 aimless and objectless. If it is pulled, it makes a movement 
 of avoidance, but falls back into its stupefied condition as 
 soon as it is released. It is no longer capable of action 
 consciously directed to a given object ; it neither tries to 
 escape, nor to attack, nor to go back to its home, nor to 
 rejoin its companions, nor to walk away ; it feels neither 
 heat nor cold, it knows neither fear nor desire for food. It 
 is merely an automatic and reflex machine, and is exactly 
 similar to one of those pigeons, from which Flourens re- 
 moved the hemispheres of the cerebrum. Just in the same 
 way behaves the body of an ant from which the head has 
 been taken away. In the numerous fights between Amazons 
 and other ants, countless cases have been observed of slight 
 injury to the brain, which have caused the most remarkable 
 phenomena. Many of the wounded were seized with a 
 mad rage, and flung themselves at everyone that came in 
 their way, whether friend or foe. Others assumed an 
 appearance of indifference, and walked serenely about in the 
 midst of the fighting. Others exhibited a sudden failure of 
 strength ; but they still recognised their enemies, approached 
 them, and tried to bite them in cold blood, in a way quite 
 foreign to the behavior of healthy ants. They were also 
 often observed to run round and round in a circle, the 
 motion resembling the manege, or riding-school action of 
 mammals, when one of the crura cerebri has been removed. 
 If an ant is cut in half through the thorax, so that the 
 great nerve ganglia of the prothorax remain untouched, 
 the behavior of the head shows that intelligence also remains 
 untouched. Ants mutilated in this way try to go forwards 
 with their two remaining legs, and beg with their antennas 
 for their companions' aid. If one of these latter lets itself be 
 stopped, then we observe a lively interchange of thanks and 
 sympathy expressed by the actively moving antennas. Forel 
 placed near to each other two such mutilated bodies of the 
 F, rufibarbis. They conversed with each other in the above 
 described way, and appeared each to beg for help. But 
 when he put in some similarly mutilated ants of a hostile 
 species, F. sanguined, the picture was changed ; war broke 
 out between these cripples just in the same way and with 
 the same fury as between perfect ants. Mutilated human
 
 50 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 soldiers have also been known to kill or try to wound each 
 other, as they lay on the ground after an embittered struggle. 
 
 There is, moreover, a great difference in the behavior of 
 ants which have only had the antennae and eyes destroyed, 
 and those which have suffered serious brain-lesion. The 
 former show will and consciousness ; the latter are auto- 
 matic and their motions are reflex. 
 
 Their large and well-constructed brain would, however, 
 be of small help or use to ants as, for instance, the dol- 
 phin, living in the water and with a clumsy body, obtains 
 little good from his large and well-developed brain if a 
 similarly well - developed and generally highly -organised 
 body were not joined to it. They have in their feelers or 
 antennae very long and flexible, consisting of a shaft and 
 nine or ten joints, and thickened into a knob at the end, 
 articulated with their heads by a very moveable hinge, and 
 bent at an angle an admirable organ for recognition and for 
 mutual comprehension, which they thoroughly know how to 
 employ. These are used for feeling with a continual rapid 
 motion and touch. Within the antenna runs a very strong 
 nerve, which takes origin at the base in a large ganglion. 
 This nerve appears to supply not only the sense of taste, 
 but also that of smell, so unusually developed in the ant. 
 The antennae are sensitive, even to the slightest movement. 
 If they are cut off the mutilated ant loses the ability of 
 finding its way, of distinguishing between friend and foe, 
 and even of finding food which is placed near it. It does 
 not even notice its much loved honey, unless its mouth acci- 
 dentally comes into contact with it, and will put its fore 
 feet into it, using these to feel with in default of its 
 antennae. It also tries to apply to it its whole head and the 
 so-called mandibular palpi, but with very poor results. Ants 
 whose feelers have been destroyed no longer trouble them- 
 selves about the building of their nests, the care of the 
 larvae, and so on. They generally remain quite quiet and 
 motionless, and hfeve as sad an appearance as men deprived 
 of their principal sense. 
 
 The two fore legs are also very strong organs, and serve 
 in building nests and in throwing up earth. Ants, off which 
 Forel had cut both fore legs, made futile attempts at digging 
 and building ; they did not succeed in making a single re- 
 spectable furrow. They also soon became covered with earth
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 51 
 
 and dirt, as did also the larvae and pupae, for they were 
 no longer able to clean either themselves or them. They 
 nevertheless tried to look after their larvae, but only suc- 
 ceeded in dirtying them, and finally left them to lie and 
 perish. Ants have on their fore legs projecting ridges, 
 which serve them as brushes and cleansing organs, and 
 with which they constantly try to keep clean their heads, 
 antennae, mandibular palpi, mandibles, and thorax. The 
 abdomen is cleansed by the other legs, which also have these 
 ridges, only less developed. The legs clean each other in 
 turn, and the spur is cleansed by drawing the leg back- 
 ward and forwards between the mandibles and the mouth. 
 
 " It is very easy," says Forel, " to watch the Amazons 
 when, returning from a marauding excursion, they go back 
 to their homes over the surface of the ground slowly and 
 wearied. We can then see how the fore leg of one side 
 cleanses the antennse of the same side, how it is then drawn 
 through the mouth, and again rubs the antennae. After 
 awhile the same manosuvre is repeated on the other side. 
 The Amazons clean themselves thus while on the march. 
 They stop for a moment, while they hang on to a blade of 
 grass by two feet on the same side, and brush with feverish 
 haste the two hind legs of the opposite side and the abdomen 
 with the spur of the corresponding fore leg. This only 
 lasts some five or six seconds ; they then recommence their 
 march, soon to repeat the same task on the other side. 
 They also from time to time cleanse their feelers." 
 
 This remarkable love of cleanliness is not, it seems, con- 
 fined to the Amazons, but is common to all ants. The Rev. 
 H. C. McCook, the distinguished American observer, found 
 that the agricultural ants kept by him in captivity which 
 will be fully dealt with hereafter were the cleanest 
 creatures possible. The whole body was carefully cleansed 
 after each meal or sleep, the different ants mutually assisting 
 each other. The particulars of these interesting proceedings 
 were exactly noted by the observer, and remind one of the 
 fashion in which cats wash and rub themselves. A sense 
 of comfort manifestly accompanies the action. The feelers, 
 or antennae, are cleansed with peculiar care. (Proceedings 
 of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, 1878, 
 2nd April.) 
 
 Far less important than the antennae are the mandibular
 
 52 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 and maxillary palpi, which appear only to serve for seeking 
 and perhaps also for testing food. 
 
 The next most important organs after the feelers are the 
 generally toothed jawbones, nippers, upper jaws or mandibles, 
 which give the ants their peculiar power and force, but 
 which never serve, as was thought, for chewing or eating, 
 but are only weapons and organs of prehension. Ants do 
 not eat solid food, but only lick liquid or soft food with the 
 tongue, like dogs. They tear or bite animals with their 
 mandibles and then lick the soft interior. The mandibles 
 are peculiarly developed and strong in slave-making species 
 and in the so-called soldiers, which in some species are a 
 separate caste, apart from the workers. 
 
 Of not less importance is the sting, situated in the 
 abdomen, which is not found in all ants, but only in the 
 genera Myrmica and Ponera. These sting severely, and pour 
 into the wound a poisonous or irritating fluid from a poison- 
 gland. Where no sting is present, the poison is dropped or 
 spirted from the abdomen into the wounds made by the 
 mandibles. Many kinds are able to spirt the contents of 
 their poisoning glands at an assailant or enemy from a distance 
 of several feet. The poison itself is the well known formic 
 acid, which, as Taschenberg has observed, can be seen 
 rising from the end of the abdomen of the enraged creature 
 like a fine silvery fountain in the sunrays. 
 
 It is also worthy of notice that the whole alimentary 
 canal of ants is divided into two parts, of which the front 
 one serves the community, the hinder one the individual. 
 The oesophagus is widened out into a kind of crop in the 
 front part of that portion of it which lies in the abdomen, 
 and this enlargement receives and can retain a great amount 
 of liquid food. As soon as it is wanted, this food can be 
 voluntarily regurgitated and given out, and serves as nourish- 
 ment for the larvae or for hungry comrades, for instance for 
 males and fertile females which do not themselves seek for 
 food, or, in some of the slave-making species, for the food 
 of the lazy masters. 
 
 Thus the ant is thoroughly fitted for the important part 
 it plays in nature and for the high place it takes in the world 
 of insects and of appendiculate animals, not only by the 
 high organisation of its brain and nervous system, but also 
 by the total constitution of its unusually powerful and yet
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 53 
 
 agile body, by the possession of well-developed organs of 
 sense and powerful offensive and defensive weapons, of 
 special instruments for building, digging, and cleansing pur- 
 poses, and of an impetuous and fearless, but yet prudent and 
 patient character.
 
 54 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ANTS IN HISTORY. 
 
 FT1HE remarkable qualities of the ant have at no time and 
 J_ at no place been quite hidden from man, and have been 
 more or less recognised and praised by him. In some places 
 in Arabia as Freitag states in his Arabic-Latin Dictionary, 
 vol. iv., p. 339, under the Arabic word for ant they put an 
 ant into the hand of the newborn child, so that the ant's 
 virtues may pass into the young life. In ancient literature 
 there are many notices of ants and of their remarkable cha- 
 racteristics. " Go to the ant, thou sluggard," says Solomon 
 in his Proverbs, chap, vi., v. 6 8, " consider her ways and 
 be wise ; which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, pro- 
 videth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in 
 the harvest." And chap, xxx., v. 25, "The ants are a 
 people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the 
 summer." In the Mishna, the collected traditional and 
 unwritten laws of the Jews, which was begun after the 
 birth of Christ under the presidentship of Hillel, and pre- 
 serves the memory of many old and otherwise forgotten 
 habits and customs, the ants and their granaries are men- 
 tioned in connexion with the rights of the gleaners at 
 harvest-time. " The granaries of the ants," it is written, 
 " which are found in the midst of a growing cornfield, shall 
 belong to the owner of the field ; but of the granaries which 
 are found after the reapers have passed, the upper half of 
 each 'shall belong to the poor, the lower to the owner." 
 And it is further said : " Rabbi Meir is of opinion that the 
 whole should belong to the poor, since in dubious points of 
 gleaning, the doubt is always in the gleaner's favor." The 
 object of the above cited law plainly is that corn gathered 
 by the ants from the cornfields before harvest shall go to 
 the owner, while that which is collected by the ants after 
 reaping, and must therefore lie on the surface of their
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 55 
 
 granaries, shall belong to the poor gleaners. Therefore the 
 upper half is to belong to the poor, the lower to the owner 
 of the field. 
 
 Among classic writers the Greek poet Hesiod, in his agri- 
 cultural poem " Works and Days," speaks of the time 
 whereat the prudent ant harvests the corn ; and Horace, 
 in his Satires (I. i. 1. 33), alludes to the foresight of the ant, 
 which looks forward to and prepares for the future. Cicero 
 (" De Nat. Deorum," fib. m., chap, ix.) says of the ants : 
 " In formica non modo sensus sed etiam mens, ratio, 
 memoria." (The ant has not only sensation, but also mind, 
 reason, and memory.) Virgil, in the " JEneid," (book iv., 
 402) compares the Trojans, flying from Troy and laden with 
 treasures, to ants laden with corn, carrying their booty home 
 with eager haste. The Roman comic poet, Plautus, in his 
 comedy " Trinummus," act ii., scene 4, makes a slave enter, 
 who in order to make intelligible the rapid disappearance of 
 some money entrusted to him, says : "It vanished in a 
 moment as swiftly as a poppy-seed thrown to ants." Any 
 one who has seen the precipitation with which certain 
 Southern species of ants rush at grains of corn which are 
 thrown in their way, will confirm the accuracy of this 
 image. 
 
 Pliny (" Natural History," book ii.) says of ants : " You 
 find among them a sort of Republic, as well as thought and 
 prudence .... they hold meetings at which they mutually 
 recognise each other. What proceedings go on ! with what 
 eagerness do they communicate with and question each other! 
 .... We see how pebbles are worn out by their running 
 over them, how posts sink deeper into the ground whereon 
 they regularly go to work. A great example of the power 
 of small but perpetual efforts." 
 
 Claudius ^Elianus, who lived in the time of the Emperor 
 Hadrian (221 A.D.) gives the following picture of the habits 
 of ants, in his work on the "Nature of Animals " (ii., 25) : 
 " In the summer, when the ears are thrashed out after the 
 harvest, swarms of ants come to the threshing-floors, in order 
 to go thieving, sometimes singly, sometimes in bands. They 
 pick out the grains of wheat or barley, and carry them off 
 straight to their homes. Some busy themselves only with 
 collecting, others carry away the load, and they understand 
 very well how to get out of each others' way, especially the 
 
 2
 
 56 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 laden and unladen. These remarkable creatures, when they 
 have arrived at home, and have filled their granaries with 
 wheat and barley, perforate each grain in the middle. That 
 which falls out serves as flour for the ants, and the re- 
 mainder is incapable of germination. They perform this 
 notable piece of domestic economy, lest the seeds, in the 
 rainy season, should sprout, and so their food should be 
 destroyed. So ants in this, as in other matters, have their 
 fair share in the gifts of nature." 
 
 ^Elianus further gives a very interesting account of the 
 way of gathering and treating the corn, the particulars of 
 which have mostly been fully corroborated by other ob- 
 servers. " When they set out on a foraging expedition, the 
 largest ants march in front as generals. When they reach 
 the harvest field, the younger ants remain at the foot of the 
 grain-stalk, while the elder ones and the leaders climb up 
 and throw down the gnawed-off grains to those waiting 
 below. These then free the grain from the husk and carry 
 off the seed. So ants obtain the food of man, which he 
 ploughs and sows for himself, while they neither thresh nor 
 winnow." , 
 
 jElianus appears also to have heard of the habit of ants 
 in tropical countries; for he says (Book xvi., 15): "The 
 
 Indian ant is certainly a clever creature They leave 
 
 an opening at the surface of their nests, through which they 
 go in and out, when they bring the collected grain." 
 
 Aldrovandus, a writer of the seventeenth century, in his work 
 on Insects (Book v.), speaks of ants, which store up grains of 
 corn and gnaw off tne radicles ; but it is not certain whether 
 he speaks from his own observation or only from hearsay. 
 
 The neatly told fable of Fontaine of the ant and the 
 grasshopper is well known ; it was borrowed by him from 
 the old Greek fabulist, JEsop. ./Esop relates : " The ants 
 were busy one winter time drying in the sun the contents of 
 their rain-drenched granaries. A grasshopper who saw this,, 
 and was at the point of dying of hunger, came near and 
 begged for a morsel. Said one of the ants : ' What were 
 you doing in the summer, you lazybones, that you need 
 now beg for bread ? ' The grasshopper answered : ' I lived 
 for pleasure. I sang and gave pleasure to the passers-by/ 
 ' Oh, oh ! ' sneered the ant, turning away, ' dance in winter, 
 if you sing in summer. Gather food for the future when
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 57 
 
 you can, and think no more of playing and of pleasing the 
 passers-by.' " 
 
 The ability of ants to understand each other was known 
 to the ancients, as will have been seen by the above-cited 
 passage from Pliny. The following anecdote is found in 
 Plutarch (" De Solertise Animalium," chap. 11): "A cer- 
 tain Cleanthes relates that he has seen ants going from one 
 ant-heap to the entrance of another, carrying a dead ant. 
 Other ants came out of the latter, conversed with the new- 
 comers and went back again. This scene was repeated twice 
 or thrice, until at last a worm was brought out of the depths 
 of the nest, which was evidently to serve as a I'ansom for 
 the dead body. Then the ants which had brought the 
 corpse, left it lying there, and carried away the worm 
 instead." 
 
 However incredible this may sound, it is beyond doubt that 
 ants and bees have been seen carrying away and even bury- 
 ing their dead, and of this further details will be given later. 
 
 From this same passage of Plutarch we learn further 
 that the ancients were acquainted with the habit of ants 
 of biting off the germinating radicles of seeds in order to 
 prevent their growth, and that they had also seen ants, car- 
 rying loads which were too heavy for them, try to lighten 
 them by biting off pieces. 
 
 That which most attracted observation in ancient times 
 was the habit of ants living in the South, of. gathering corn 
 and laying up stores for the winter. Of their other remark- 
 able characteristics, such as their wonderful social polity, 
 nothing or very little appears to have been known, while 
 attention was directed more to the study of the animals 
 whose size more readily attracted notice. When an animal 
 is very minute, people are apt to think that its organisation 
 must be very simple, and its intelligence very small, and 
 the influence of this prejudice over the majority is great. 
 The gigantic dimensions of a whale, or of a reptile of the 
 fossil age, attract general attention, while this attention is 
 difficult to arouse, if the most wonderful phenomena are 
 exhibited in the life of a gnat or an ant. And yet the 
 extraordinary capabilities of an apparently lowly creature 
 are exactly that which yields to the philosopher the most 
 valuable results. But the incredible fineness of sense 
 in insects ought to have warned the observer that corre-
 
 58 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 spending intellectual capabilities would certainly be present. 
 For of what use would such senses be to a creature which 
 was unable to utilise them on account of its poor intellectual 
 organisation ? Or for what object would insects, and espe- 
 cially ants, possess such great muscular and bodily strength, 
 which renders them capable of performances which com- 
 paratively surpass twenty, thirty, and even a hundredfold 
 those of men or of the larger animals ? 
 
 Even in the last century Hermann Samuel Reimarus, 
 the then most distinguished writer on animal intelli- 
 gence, and one who in many ways is unsurpassed to-day, 
 says practically nothing about ants in his famous book 
 on the skill of animals (Hamburg, 1762). He merely 
 mentions in cursory fashion in section 121, a " good story of 
 an Ant-Republic destroyed by him " related by Professor Meyer 
 (" Attempt at a new science of the Intelligence of Animals," 
 Halle, 1750), Avhile he appears to throw some doubt on the 
 consequences thence deduced by Meyer. But it is at least 
 evident from this that something was even then known as 
 to the peculiar character of the social polity of ants, and 
 that it was designated a " Republic." Ants do in reality 
 live in a Republic, in the fullest sense of the word, that is, in 
 a state " on the widest democratic foundations," as people 
 used to say in 1848 ; and it is very noteworthy and signifi- 
 cant that just the most intelligent family among socially- 
 living insects enjoys and has made for itself a polity which 
 is regarded among men as the relatively best and most ideal, 
 while a step lower, among bees, we recognise a distinct 
 inclination to the form of so-called constitutional monarchy. 
 Among men it is usual to say that the republican form of 
 government, from the theoretical standpoint, best represents 
 the ideal of the state and the principles of justice, as well 
 as of universal equality ; but that having regard to the 
 ineradicable weakness of human nature and the consequent 
 impossibility of self-government, it is not practically 
 realisable. If this be true, we men have certainly no ground 
 from which to look down contemptuously upon the little 
 ant-nation, every tribe of which considers itself intelligent 
 and civilised enough to be able to live under the principles 
 of universal equality and liberty. 
 
 But, as though this were not enough, the Ant Republic is 
 not only a political, but also a social or socialistic Republic,,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 59 
 
 and in reality is that which our most idealist political and 
 social reformers are wont to put forward as the last and 
 mightiest aim of human efforts after perfection in this 
 direction, that which Plato and Thomas More have already 
 pointed out as such. If the democrats of the latest style 
 had to find a polity fashioned after their own ideas, 
 or to govern a " Proletariat State," no better advice 
 could be given them than to take as model the poli- 
 tical and social arrangements of ants. The ant-state 
 is a " Proletariat State " in the fullest and truest sense 
 of the word, in the direction of which only the wing- 
 less, sexless, worker-ants, which have no families of their 
 own to look after, take part, while the winged males and 
 fertile females are kept as prisoners in the nest, and are only 
 fed and nurtured for the sake of their progeny. The ex- 
 pression " sexless " is really not appropriate to the men, or 
 rather women-workers, for these are really females with 
 arrested sexual organs, so that the state is constituted under 
 completely feminine rule. As P. Huber remarks, they are 
 women whose moral qualities have been developed at the 
 cost of their physical. The individual ant does not possess 
 a family, for the principle of public and state training of 
 children such as the philosopher Plato is known to have 
 desired in his Republic, and which indeed would be necessary 
 in a fully-organised " Proletariat State " is thoroughly 
 carried out in the Ant Republic. 
 
 That, further, the worker-ants were formerly winged, and 
 were therefore more like the perfectly developed females 
 than they now are, is shown in the interesting discovery, 
 lately made by Dr. Dewitz, of rudimentary or arrested 
 wings in the pupae. 
 
 The males and fertile females, which (the former more 
 than the latter) are far behind the workers in intelligence, 
 and only live for amusement and for propagation, are, as we 
 have said, kept in the nest like prisoners, and have no other 
 vocation than the maintenance of the colony ; even this 
 vocation is carried on only by the permission of the working 
 population and under their strict superintendence. On a 
 warm sunny day they are allowed to quit the nest, or 
 dwelling, and for a change to take a constitutional on the 
 surface. But they are then watched by a number of 
 workers, which prevent them from flying away. There is
 
 60 AXTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 moreover this great difference between the males and fertile 
 females, that the males are far more behind the workers in 
 intelligence and other good qualities than are the females. 
 Owing to the weakness of their mandibles they are as in- 
 capable of every kind of work as they are of defending 
 themselves against an enemy. Forel thinks that they are not 
 even able to distinguish between the workers of their own 
 colony and those of a hostile tribe. If a nest be destroyed, 
 they try to hide away in corners, and often do not know the 
 way back to their tunnels, while the fertile females are 
 quite able to find it. The latter will have long found a 
 place of safety, while a number of males are wandering un- 
 steadily about, without knowing whither to flee. The 
 workers often find themselves obliged to lead them all back 
 to the nest. 
 
 The fertile females are also able to occasionally help the 
 workers in their labors, a task of which the much smaller 
 males are quite incapable, and Forel has often watched 
 these females carrying larva? and pupaa. They manage to 
 follow the fleeing workers, in case of flight, while the males 
 are scarcely ever able to do so. They also exhibit many 
 signs of courage and intelligence, although they never equal 
 the workers, and they show in their character a certain 
 irritability and want of perseverance. They are also able 
 to distinguish between friend and foe. They are almost 
 twice as large as the males, and are generally rather larger 
 than the worker-ants. 
 
 It is perceived that among ants the female sex has pre- 
 dominance over the male in all questions of rights, and this 
 is carried out in a way which must raise the envy of the 
 boldest champions of human female emancipation. 
 
 When the fertile females go on the surface of the nest in 
 company with their unworthy wooers, or future husbands, 
 they are, as we said above, accompanied by a guard of 
 workers, which appear to be very proud of the importance 
 of their task, and lead their charges back within the nest 
 at the least sign of danger. After these walks have been 
 repeated during several days, the great flight, or wedding 
 tour, takes place with the consent of the workers, gene- 
 rally on some fine afternoon in July or August. The 
 entrances to the nest are widened or increased in number, 
 for the greater convenience of the swarmers, and an unusual
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 61 
 
 amount of commotion is seen on the surface of the nest. 
 One of the fertile females begins to flutter her wings and to 
 rise in the air : a second follows ; the males do the same in 
 order to follow their wives. The watching workers who, 
 having no wings, are unable to follow, become much 
 agitated ; at last the interesting scene closes with the flight 
 of the whole swarm into the air, as a thick cloud, rising to 
 a considerable height. 
 
 For the flight is chosen a fine, bright summer day, as 
 when a storm has taken place the day before and there is no 
 other to be feared ; and since such a day is not only chosen 
 by one but by many colonies in the same neighborhood, 
 there are often swarms so large and so extended that they 
 darken the air, and are mistaken for clouds of smoke arising 
 from a distant fire. These swarms dance gaily up and down 
 in the air for hours, generally circling round some high 
 place, such as a church tower, the top of a tall tree, a hill 
 etc., and the fertilisation of the females by the males is 
 effected during the flight. 
 
 Zoologists have not yet quite, ascertained if the merry 
 bridal folk during their happy journey sing the well-known 
 song : 
 
 "Das fliichtige Leben eilt schneller dahin, 
 Als Riider am Wagen, 
 Wer weisz, ob ich morgen am Leben noch bin ? " 
 
 But in any case such a song would be eminently suitable 
 to the occasion, for a sad end soon comes to the brief 
 happiness. When the wedding parties return to earth after 
 a few hours' flight, the poor husbands perish in shameful 
 wise, for they are unable to feed themselves, and either die 
 from hunger or fall a prey to pursuing birds and spiders. 
 Many also are killed by hostile ants. The workers or 
 neuter-ants of their own colony have lost all interest in them 
 from the moment of their return, and trouble themselves no 
 more about them, for they well know that the males have 
 now fulfilled their vocation, and that their prolonged exis- 
 tence as useless consumers would only be a burden. A very 
 egoistical, but also a very republican, or rather socialistic 
 proceeding. For " He who will not work, neither shall he 
 eat." We shall see later that this beautiful precept is yet 
 more severely and cruelly obeyed among bees. 
 
 The greater part of the remaining females have no happier
 
 62 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 fate than their husbands, for their number is far too large 
 for work to be found for them all. A few who chance to 
 find a hole or to dig a refuge in moist earth at the spot 
 whereon they descend, become the mothers of future colonies. 
 For the performance of this task the wings necessary for the 
 wedding tour are only burdensome and hindering ; and a 
 wonderful instinct if people will insist on the expression 
 teaches them to voluntarily free themselves from an organ 
 thenceforward useless and even mischievous. They there- 
 fore scratch at their wings, one after the other, with the 
 clawed ends of their feet, and drag and twist them about 
 until they fall off. This is the easier, because the articula- 
 tions of the wings with the body are veiy slight. The opera- 
 tion, further, does not appear to give them any pain. When 
 this business is over, the fertilised females are queens, and 
 they really have a kind of kingdom, for they are compelled 
 by passing ants to return to their native home, and are there 
 kept for the important business of egg-laying. 
 
 So at least are things managed according to the majority 
 of writers on ant life ; but Forel entirely contradicts this 
 account, and maintains that such females only become 
 queens of the nest as have not shared in the swarming or 
 wedding-flight, and which have been fertilised within or on 
 the surface of the nest. According to him the females 
 which take part in the swarming never return to their own 
 nest, and, indeed, show a dislike to it. Therefore the 
 workers keep back a number of fertilised females, which 
 have been fertilised on the surface of the nest or close by 
 before the wedding-flight, and use these as the mothers of 
 the colony. They thereby ensure the important point of 
 preserving pure blood in the colony, since foreign males 
 never venture on the surface of another nest, while during 
 the swarming in the air there is great and unavoidable 
 mingling of the members of different colonies. The females 
 thus kept back quickly accustom themselves to captivity and 
 do not seek to escape. Sometimes there are only a few of 
 them, at other times twenty, thirty, or even more. They 
 are saved the trouble of pulling off their wings, for the 
 workers look to this business for them, and tear or bite them 
 off. 
 
 Forel's view must command credence when we remember 
 that the wedding-flights often go very far from their nests,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 63 
 
 and that owing to the mixture of the various swarms it 
 seems almost impossible that each female should find her 
 way back to her own nest on returning to earth : and the 
 more so that the behavior of the workers described by him 
 manifests the attainment of a defined and very important 
 object. They have all they want in the queens which have 
 become such under their direct oversight and co-operation, 
 and they need no others. These are cared for, cleaned, 
 brushed, nourished, and nursed through their egg-laying, in 
 the best fashion.* 
 
 Each queen has generally a suite of ten or more workers, 
 which are constantly busied about her, and take every 
 imaginable care of her and her eggs. But this is not the 
 case always nor with all species. Forel noticed that in the 
 genus Leptothorax, the queens live like the workers, but are 
 less skilful at work. Other species give their queens the 
 best and largest cell in the nest, and are so attached even to 
 her corpse that it is difficult to tear them away from it. The 
 greatest care for the queens was observed by Forel to be 
 bestowed upon them by the Lasii. Here they are always 
 surrounded by a number of workers, which follow them 
 everywhere, and often so cover them with their bodies as to 
 render them completely invisible, while they also feed them and 
 gather the eggs laid by them. 1 he queens appear to exist for the 
 sake of the workers, so that they are wrongly called "queens," 
 and, indeed, in a Republic this could not be otherwise. 
 Their queenly dignity appears to consist less in command 
 than in obedience, and the care and attention which is. 
 showered upon them is less for their own sake than for that 
 of their young. 
 
 * A very well informed critic of the Dutch translation of this work, 
 writing in the " Groniger Deekblad " of June 16, 1877, considers that 
 the above views of Forel are contradicted by the fact that in such case 
 the described swarming would be objectless. He thinks, on the con- 
 trary, having regard to the injurious effects of in-breeding, that it 
 is of the greatest importance to the ants "not to keep the colony pure, 
 but to have an infusion of fresh blood." He regards the fertile females 
 which have not left the colony, and which, according to him, are only 
 fertilised after the bridal flight, as a kind of reserve corps to which the 
 workers resort only in case of need and if they fail to secure any 
 returning queens. They are only the exceptions, while the swarming 
 females are the rule. The Termites, according to him, (and this will 
 have exact mention later,) have such a reserve corps.
 
 4 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Henceforth the care of these young is the chief business 
 and the special duty of life of the workers, and it is very 
 worthy of observation that this social tendency is most 
 strongly developed exactly in those creatures which, on 
 account of their sexlessness, are not in a position to have 
 a family of their own and to propagate the society. Every 
 are is bestowed on the eggs laid by the queen, which, 
 according to the observations of Huber, grow in a wonderful 
 and almost inexplicable way, before the larvae, or grubs, are 
 hatched. Since the workers gather the eggs together in 
 little heaps, and lick them constantly with their tongues, the 
 growth apparently takes place by endosmosis ; i.e., through 
 the passage inwards of nourishing matter from without. If 
 the workers are removed from the eggs the latter perish from 
 dryness, which proves that the licking is necessary for the 
 preservation of the life of the egg. After about fourteen 
 days, during which the workers sometimes place the eggs in 
 the higher and sometimes in the lower stories of the nest, in 
 order to protect them from too great heat, cold or damp, 
 small, white, almost inactive little grubs emerge, maggots or 
 larvae without eyes or feet, which can only exist throifgh the 
 nursing of the workers, and whose care requires a far higher 
 kind of attention than the eggs. They are thoroughly well 
 nursed, and, as Blanchard says, no more attentive, watchful 
 nurses, or more devoted to their duty, can be found than 
 these. The larvae can scarcely move and cannot change 
 from place to place. Still less can they eat alone, so that 
 they are thrown entirely on their nurses for support, and 
 these feed them in the same way as birds do their young. 
 The eagerness with which ants are known to seek nourish- 
 ment, especially sweet liquids, is due far less to their own 
 needs than to those of their foster-children. They feed 
 these just in the same way as they do their companions and 
 queens, regurgitating into the mouth the food stored up in 
 the crop or proventriculus, and then giving it from mouth 
 to mouth. The larvae have nothing to do save to take with 
 their tongue the nourishment offered to them, and they show 
 their hunger by stretching out their little brown and gene- 
 rally somewhat retracted heads. During feeding they 
 always lie on their backs ; and since the young ants, after 
 emergence, as will be later shown, are fed for some little 
 time by the older ones, it is easy to see how much tendance,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 65 
 
 care and woi-k are requisite for the complete rearing of each 
 individual ant. 
 
 The workers lick the larvae almost ceaselessly, clean them 
 if they get soiled with earth, and, when needful, carry them 
 about as they do the eggs, to the different parts of the nest. 
 The larvae are also occasionally taken out in distinct groups, 
 separated by the older and larger, so that one is involun- 
 tarily reminded of a school, witli divided classes of elders. 
 
 " Nothing is more interesting," says Blanchard, " than to 
 watch the ceaseless care of the ants for their larvae. They 
 clean them by rubbing or brushing them with their man- 
 dibular palpi ; in the mornings they carry them to the upper 
 parts of the nests, in order that they may enjoy the pleasant 
 warmth, while, later in the day, they shelter them in the 
 lower rooms from the burning rays of the sun. These 
 carryings up and down are repeated as often as is required 
 by atmospheric changes. It is surprising to see the tender 
 care with which the ants carry the soft and easily injured 
 bodies of the larvae between their hard horny jaws. An 
 accident never happens to them, they are never crushed, nor 
 wounded, nor knocked against the hard walls of the long 
 tunnels of the nest." 
 
 When the larvae are grown, which is during the summer 
 or in the following spring, they spin themselves a cocoon 
 for the change into regular ants, and are then called pupae, 
 nymphae, or popularly, " ant-eggs." Their egg-like ap- 
 pearance and clear smooth outside make most people incor- 
 rectly regard them as the real eggs of the ant. They are 
 very much sought after, as they are the chief ingredient in 
 the food of caged warblers. 
 
 The nymphae need no food, but are carried about like 
 the larvae by the workers, licked, cleaned, and exposed in 
 heaps in front of the nest on fine days to the heat and light. 
 When the sunrays fall on the nest, the ants outside, the 
 sentries, give a signal to those within, and the workers inside 
 quickly carry the pupae and larvae on to the surface of the 
 nest, and later carry them in again, first to the upper story, 
 where it is still warm. They pull along the large white 
 shapeless things, holding them in their strong jaws, " like 
 cats their kittens," and try to defend them at the sacrifice 
 of their own lives against the marauders from foreign ant- 
 colonies as will be hereafter described or to save them
 
 66 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 by flight. If, for instance, we break a hole in an ant-hill, 
 we at first see the larvae and pupae in the upper floors rolling 
 in heaps over each other. The workers who are in the 
 neighborhood at once rush to help. Each seizes a larva or 
 nympha and carries it away. A moment later, in answer 
 to a signal of alarm, hundreds of the sterile ants come up 
 from the depths of the nest, and throw themselves upon the 
 remaining larvae and pupae in order to hide them in the lower 
 rooms of the dwelling. As soon as this first and chief duty 
 is accomplished, they at once turn to the repair of the mis- 
 chief which has been done, and this with such speed and 
 ability that generally in about an hour there is no sign of 
 the destruction left. 
 
 Although the pupae want no food, they yet seem unable 
 to exist without the tendance of the ants ; at least Forel 
 was unable to keep them alive without this help. The aid 
 of the workers is quite indispensable, Avhen the great mo- 
 ment draws nigh, in which they are to break from the 
 cocoon, their envelope, to enter upon the life of the true 
 ant. The pupae are generally unable to free themselves 
 from their covering although some observers deriy this 
 and would perish if left unassisted.* They do, indeed 
 try to release themselves, but do not generally succeed, and 
 are only able to set free a part of their bodies. The 
 workers, therefore, open the cocoon, or case of the pupa, 
 with their sharp jaws, and draw the young animal out care- 
 fully. At other times they only help to free the legs and 
 wings. The workers do not keep to any exact time for the 
 ripening of the nymphae, but free them sometimes earlier, 
 sometimes later, " as is most convenient," as Forel expresses 
 it when mentioning this observation a fact which does not 
 suggest that the workers are here guided by never- erring 
 instinct. The pupae would of course perish, if they were 
 freed either too early or too late. 
 
 The little animal when freed from its chrysalis is still 
 covered with a thin skin, like a little shirt, which has to be 
 pulled off. When we see how neatly and gently this is 
 done, and how the young creature is then washed, brushed, 
 
 * Mr. McCook found that pupae which he kept away from the 
 workers always perished, whence he concluded that the assistance of 
 the latter is necessary. " Transactions of the Am. Entom. Soc.," 
 Dec., 1876.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 67 
 
 and fed, we are involuntarily reminded of the nursing of 
 human babies. The empty cases, or cocoons, are carried 
 outside the nest, and may be seen heaped together there for 
 a long time. Some species carry them far away from the 
 nest, or turn them into building-materials for the dwelling. 
 
 The pupae, entirely freed from their cases, and now young 
 ants, are however not yet ready and armed with all the 
 advantages of a true ant as they ought to be if the in- 
 stinct-theory were true but still need the help and guidance 
 of their elder sisters. As already mentioned, these at first 
 give it food, and begin to lead it about the nest, and train it 
 in a knowledge of domestic duties, especially in the care of 
 the larvae. Later, and after their originally soft skin has 
 become hard, they are taught to distinguish between friend 
 and foe to fight, whereby the important consciousness that 
 they belong to a certain race or a certain colony is awakened 
 in them. If a colony is besieged or attacked by another, 
 it will be noticed that the young ants, which can be easily 
 recognised by their lighter color, never mix in the fray ; 
 they only understand enough to follow their friends in flight, 
 or to drag away the pupae. 
 
 In order to establish this remarkable fact, Forel undertook 
 the following experiment. He brought young ants from 
 three different species into a glass case with pupae of six 
 different species ; all the species were more or less hostile 
 to each other. Damp earth with a piece of glass over it 
 represented the nursery. The young ants set to work 
 together without quarrelling, and carried the pupae under the 
 glass and established them therein. One individual, which 
 was somewhat older and darker, belonging to the species 
 rufibarbis, separated itself and carried its pupae on one side. 
 Forel several times tried to make it approach the others ; it 
 turned back to its corner each time, until at last, as it 
 could not get out of the way of its enemies, it decided to 
 unite with them. When the pupae were ready for emergence, 
 they helped the young ants by tearing their cocoons without 
 respect of persons, although Forel noticed that the members 
 of each species very willingly had to do with the pupae of 
 their own species. Only the pupas of the F. cethiops were 
 somewhat neglected, so that they perished in their closed 
 cocoons. Thus Forel reared an artificial ant-colony out of 
 five different species, which lived together on the best terms.
 
 68 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Ten days later, when the young ants had become darker, 
 Forel took his colony and installed it in a chink in a wall 
 in the open. In order to strengthen it, he brought some 
 young workers of the same species from a foreign colony. 
 But the original ants would not receive them ; they first 
 threatened them with their jaws, and then seized them and 
 carried them a long way off and left them. They repeated 
 this several times. The original and artificially united ants 
 thus formed themselves into an independent colony. 
 
 The education of the young ants by the old goes on 
 tolerably rapidly, and Forel saw that in several species the 
 young were able to distinguish their friends more or less at 
 the end of three or four days. Owing to its rapidity many 
 observers have entirely overlooked this education, and have 
 thought that ants come into the world with their whole 
 knowledge and mind ready and fixed. Still more important 
 is the teaching of building, of which, later, exact account 
 will be given. 
 
 The natural superiority of the older ants over the younger, 
 given by age, strength, and experience, appears to be the 
 only personal inequality which is to be found in this Republic 
 of Liberty and Equality. The most trustworthy observers 
 unanimously agree with the sentence quoted from Solomon, 
 that the ants, like the colonies of bees, wasps, etc., have no 
 chiefs, overseers, nor leaders, and that one is as good as 
 another. The consciousness of their duty alone keeps them 
 orderly and at work. Some observers, as for example, 
 Ebrard, have nevertheless spoken of such overseers. But 
 Forel affirms that they are the creation of his own fancy. 
 Huber, he goes on, has already shown that ants have no over- 
 seers, and that even the slaves never suffer the least oppres- 
 sion at their masters' hands. He himself confirms this, and 
 never saw an ant which played a submissive part towards its 
 companions. A worker of larger size is always an object of 
 greater attention from the others than is a small, but only 
 on account of its size ; if the large ones march at the bead 
 in their excursions, it is for defensive purpose, of which the 
 smaller are not so capable. On an occasion of change of 
 dwellings, there is no difference of industry among the 
 different ants. The smaller are only more busy because the 
 larger are more warlike, and more fit to do battle. The 
 soldiers, or fighters, which among some European and most
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 69 
 
 tropical ants, are, as lias already been mentioned, a special 
 class distinct from their comrades, of whom more will be 
 said later, never play a commanding role, but only one of 
 service to the community. McCook (ante. Nov. 1877, p. 178) 
 establishes that each ant develops a complete personal inde- 
 pendence, and that there can be no talk of overseers, of 
 leaders, nor of rulers. May we not naturally ask why so 
 extended a self -government, which is enough for these little 
 Republicans, is not also possible for man ? And why should 
 we take it for granted that in a perfectly free community 
 men would only work if compelled, when these animals give 
 proof that such a free commonwealth is very possible, and is 
 compatible with the voluntary work of all ? 
 
 As to the so-called queens, it has been already said that 
 they do not exercise the smallest authority, and only so far 
 deserve their name in that, as a rule, they take no part in 
 the ordinary work, and that, omitting their duty of egg- 
 laying, they yield themselves up to a dolce far niente, a soft 
 idleness, to a frivolous and careless life of pleasure. They 
 also resemble human queens in allowing themselves to be 
 fed by their gwasz-subjects, but they are very favorably 
 distinguished from their human antetypes, so that under 
 exceptional circumstances, when there is need, they set to 
 work and are not ashamed to perform the same tasks as 
 their subjects. This is especially the case where there is a 
 lack of workers' hands. Lespes gives a most striking 
 example of this kind. He watched a small species of ant 
 in Southern France, which gathered in very small colonies, 
 generally consisting of only about sixty members, and among 
 these not less than twenty were queens. Here the latter 
 shared the work. Such an arrangement seems very foolish, 
 and does not say much for the famous " design " in natural order. 
 But the misarrangement is again compensated for, since 
 the queens, as we have said, willingly resign their privilege 
 of idleness, and, forgetting their queenly dignity, share the 
 work of their subjects. Has anything like this ever been 
 heard among men ? Even among these are found political 
 abnormalities reminding us of the misarrangement among 
 the ants. Let us think of the negro princelings in Africa, 
 or of the constitution of our former German Empire, in which 
 some hundreds of sovereign or independent princes, counts, 
 bishops, archbishops, etc., ruled a few millions of subjects.
 
 70 
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Or of the beautiful times of romantic chivalry, when every 
 spurred noble commanded a large or small number of bond- 
 men or personal retainers. But have we ever heard of any 
 one of these little lords rising to the self-renunciation of the 
 royal ant-mind, and taking part in the useful work of his 
 subjects ? Truly, man ought not to forget that only men 
 have reason, and that animals, according to the philosophers, 
 have merely instinct !
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ANT ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 BUT to return to our subject and our busy worker-ants, 
 whose tireless and well-directed industry is not confined 
 to the high task of training their successors, but extends over 
 -a whole circle of other scarcely less important duties. 
 
 Before all, there is the very complicated dwelling, which 
 is not seldom built, partly in, partly above the ground, of 
 from twenty to forty and more stories one over the other, 
 thus leaving far behind it the highest building of man. 
 This so-called ant-heap the outer appeai-ance of which does 
 not in the least betray the wonderful complexity and appro- 
 priateness of its inner arrangement often rises over a metre 
 in height above the ground, while it also stretches as far 
 below the surface, making altogether a height of between 
 two and three metres. It is built in most artistic 
 fashion out of all attainable materials, such as wood, earth, 
 stones, leaves, stalks, twigs, etc., anything that will serve 
 the ants' purpose. On commencing the building, the earth is 
 first hollowed out in a given circle ; then the building itself 
 is made by help of the thrown-up earth and the other 
 materials brought there, and is widened and enlarged later 
 according to necessity and the condition of affairs. Each 
 story is supported by shafts, or pillars, or beams of wood or 
 clay, the steadiness of which is subjected in each case to 
 careful testing. These beams are often of remarkable 
 length and strength. Forel found some which were thirteen 
 centimetres long by one and a half millimetres in diameter, 
 and others of five centimetres long by three and a half 
 millimetres deep. There are some even larger, and a single 
 ant is able to drag them. Their great length allows the 
 ants to make large, rooms or halls within the dwelling. This 
 is specially wanted for the middle of the so-called labyrinth, 
 which consists of a large chamber, the roof of which is held up 
 
 F 2
 
 72 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 by a scaffolding of beams laid crosswise. Round this are 
 numberless single rooms and galleries, which are divided by 
 partition-walls, and arranged in stories. The lowest parts 
 of the nest are built most firmly and methodically. It is 
 highly interesting to see how the ants drag the beams along, 
 and overcome all the obstacles in their way. Two or more 
 workers usually unite in consultation over the arrangement 
 of the work, when a little way has been made. One gene- 
 rally begins in one direction, one in another. Or both work 
 in the same direction ; but a grass-stalk, a plant-stem, or 
 something of that kind gets in the way and renders their 
 endeavors abortive. They soon recognise their mistake, 
 and unite their efforts in a more fruitful direction. 
 
 " Looking at the entangled mass of sticks of almost the 
 same size," says Blanchard, "which the ants have heaped 
 together, it might be thought that they were the work of 
 chance. But a more accurate investigation convinces one 
 that these bits of wood are arranged with wonderful nicety, 
 that rooms, galleries, lodges, tunnels, etc., are all so made as 
 to yield easy communication between the several garts of 
 the nest. The spaces between the beams are filled up with 
 earth, pebbles, dry leaves, etc., the chinks are plastered 
 over, the roughnesses smoothed; pillars and pilasters are 
 reared of damp earth ; in brief, the creatures act in every- 
 thing like clever architects." 
 
 Clever as these little architects may be, they are, however, 
 subject to error, like human architects, and have to suffer 
 from the clumsiness of some of the laborers. Yet, on the 
 other hand, they do not find it difficult to repair blunders 
 which have thereby happened. Wrongly directed walls are 
 pulled down and others built: Avorkers which have done bad 
 work are corrected by the others, or are put right and 
 obliged to work under the supervision of a companion. P. 
 Huber relates : " After I had observed the ingenuity with 
 which these ant-palaces were built, I felt that the only way 
 of finding out the true secrets of their construction, was to 
 watch the behavior of the several ants at work. My day- 
 books are full of similar observations ; I will quote some of 
 those which appear to me to be of sufficient importance. I 
 will picture the conduct of a single ant, which I was able to 
 follow for a long tune. I once saw an ant scraping up the 
 earth near a hole which served as entrance to an ant-nest.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 73 
 
 It heaped together the stalks it had loosened, and made little 
 beams of them, which it carried there and then into the nest. 
 It always came back to the same place, and appeared to 
 follow a settled plan : for it worked with eagerness and 
 patience. I then discovered a lightly traced furrow in the 
 ground. It ran in straight lines, and appeared to suggest 
 the beginning of a passage or gallery. The worker, all 
 whose actions went on under my eyes, deepened and widened 
 the furrow, and smoothed its sides : and 1 was at last con- 
 vinced that its aim was to make a way from a certain hole, 
 to the entrance of the underground nest. This passage, 
 made by a single worker, was from two to three inches long, 
 and was open above and bounded on each side by a wall of 
 earth. Its shape, resembling that of a gutter, was perfectly 
 regular ; and the little worker had not left therein a grain too 
 much. The work of this ant was so superior and accurate that 
 I could almost always recognise what it wished to do and 
 what part it built. Near the opening, where the passage 
 ended, I found a second ant, making a road exactly similar. 
 Between these roads ran a little wall, three or four lines in 
 height. When the ants are busied in building together a 
 wall, a room, or a gallery, it sometimes happens that the 
 different parts do not perfectly agree. This is not infre- 
 quent, but the ants do not allow themselves to be thereby 
 disconcerted. I will relate one case, wherein a worker dis- 
 covered its mistake and knew how to remedy it. A wall 
 had been partly erected, which appeared as though it were 
 intended to support the still unfinished arched roof of a 
 large room, which was being built from the opposite side. 
 But the worker which had begun the arch, had given it too 
 low an elevation for the wall on which it was to rest, and if 
 it had been continued on the same lines it would have 
 met the partition wall half-way up, and this was to be 
 avoided. I had just made this criticism to myself, when a 
 new arrival, after looking at the work, came to the same 
 conclusion. For it began at once to destroy what had been 
 done, to heighten the wall on which it was supported, and to 
 make a new arch with the materials of the old one under 
 my very eyes. When the ants begin an undertaking, it 
 seems exactly as if an idea slowly ripened into execution 
 in their minds. Thus, if one of them finds two stalks lying 
 Crosswise on the nest, which make possible the formation
 
 74 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 of a room, or some little rafters which suggest the- 
 walls and the corners, it first observes the various part* 
 accurately, and then quickly and neatly heaps little pellets of 
 earth in the interspaces and alongside the stalks. It brings- 
 from every side materials that seern appropriate, and some- 
 times takes such from the uncompleted works of its com- 
 panions, so much is it urged on by the idea which it has 
 once conceived, and by the desire to execute it. It 
 goes and comes and turns back again, until its plan is 
 recognisable by the others." Ebrard (" Etudes de Moeurs," 
 Geneve, 1874, p. 3) relates: 
 
 " The earth was damp and the workers were in full swing. 
 It was a constant coming and going of ants, coming forth 
 from their underground dwelling, and carrying back little 
 pellets of earth for building. In order to concentrate my 
 attention I fixed my gaze on the largest of the rooms which 
 were being built, wherein several ants were busy. The work 
 had made considerable progress ; but although a projection 
 could be plainly seen along the upper edge of the wall, there 
 remained an interspace of about twelve or fifteen millimetres- 
 to fill in. Here would have been the place, in order to 
 support the earth still to be brought in, to have had recourse 
 to those pillars, buttresses or fragments of dried leaves,, 
 which many ants are wont to use in building. But the use 
 of this expedient is not customary with the ants I was 
 observing (F.fusca, dark grey ants). Our ants, however, 
 were sufficient for the occasion. For a moment they seemed 1 
 inclined to leave their work, but soon turned instead to a, 
 grass-plant growing near, the long narrow leaves of which 
 ran close together. They chose the nearest, and weighted' 
 its distal end with damp earth, until its apex just bent down 
 to the space to be covered. Unfortunately the bend was 
 too close to the extremity and it threatened to break. To. 
 prevent this misfortune, the ants gnawed at the base of the 
 leaf until it bent along its whole length and covered the 
 space required. But as this did not seem to be quite 
 enough, they heaped damp earth between the base of the 
 plant and that of the leaf, until the latter was sufficiently 
 bent. After they had thus attained their object, they 
 heaped on the buttressing leaf the materials required for 
 building the arched roof." 
 
 One of the most industrious species is the black or black-
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 75 
 
 brown garden ant, Lasius niger. These build in stories, 
 but, according to Huber, follow no distinct plan. It rather 
 appears as though nature left them a certain elbow-room, 
 and that they can mould their original plan to suit circum- 
 stances. The larger spaces, or rooms, are always supported 
 by smaller rooms and sometimes by regular arches. Some 
 rooms have only a single entrance or a communication with 
 the chamber beneath ; other very large ones are perforated 
 on all sides, and resemble a centre towards which all roads 
 converge. On opening such a nest, the rooms and large 
 spaces are found filled with adult ants, while the chrysalides 
 or pupre are brought into the rooms nearer the surface 
 according to the time of day and the temperature. For, as 
 Huber remarked, ants are gifted with a very fine sensibility in 
 this respect, and know exactly the degree of warmth which 
 is suitable to their young. The stories being built one over 
 another, it is easy to find each desired modification, while 
 during floods caused by heavy rain the whole community 
 takes flight from the upper to the lower parts of the nest. 
 Huber describes as follows the exact fashion of building : 
 " Each ant carried in its jaws a little ball of earth, which it 
 made while it scraped the floor of the lower stories with the 
 ends of its jaws or mandibles. These balls were again 
 divided by the toothed mandibles and set beside and above 
 each other, and the whole was fastened and lightly pressed 
 together by the forefeet. Each movement was followed by 
 the feelers, each bit of earth tested by them. The whole 
 work went forward very rapidly. After the ground-plan 
 had been sketched, and the foundation of the future pillars 
 and walls marked here and there, the further building 
 followed. Often two little walls, designed to bound a 
 gallery, were observed being built at a little distance from 
 each other. When they had risen to a height of from four 
 to five lines, an arched roof was begun, in order to unite 
 them, by making a projection of damp earth along the upper 
 edge of each wall, and this was increased until each met that 
 of the opposite side. The galleries made in this fashion 
 were often a quarter of an inch wide. 
 
 " Here several perpendicular walls marked the entrance 
 to a room which was designed to communicate with 
 different corridors. There was a shapely saloon, supported 
 by numerous pillars. Further on was recognisable the outline
 
 76 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 of one of those central spaces, which were spoken of above, 
 whereon many passages opened. These spaces were the 
 longest ; but although they sometimes had a width of two 
 and more inches, the ants had no difficulty in roofing them 
 in. They began the work in the corners wherein the walls 
 met, as well as along the upper edges of the latter ; from the 
 top of each pillar, as from so many centres, bow-like arched 
 layers of earth were built horizontally, so as to join those 
 which sprang from the other sides of the large open space to 
 meet them. The number of little wall-builders coming 
 from all sides with their bit of mortar in their mouths, the 
 regularity they observed, the unanimity with which they 
 worked, the skill with which they took advantage of a shower 
 of rain so as to enlarge their dwelling all this offered a 
 most interesting spectacle to a lover of nature. 
 
 " I have sometimes feared lest their building should be 
 unable to support its own weight and a heavy shower of 
 rain. But I was reassured when I noticed how firmly the 
 different parts were fitted together, and that the rain could 
 only fasten them together more permanently. Only a very 
 heavy rain occasionally breaks down badly built rooms, but 
 they are very quickly repaired. 
 
 " A complete story is often built in from seven to eighthours, 
 and the several ceilings all form at last a common platform. 
 As soon as such a story is finished, they generally begin to 
 build another on its surface, particularly when the weather 
 is favorable. A dry wind stops the work. I noticed how a 
 strong north wind quickly dried the new buildings, and made 
 them fall to pieces. When the ants are convinced that their 
 work is useless, they do not cease building, but destroy all 
 unfinished rooms and walls, and spread out the debris on the 
 surface of the top story." 
 
 Forel confirms all these observations, adding the remark 
 that it is rare to find a completely uninjured nest standing 
 alone, so as to be able to recognise all these arrangements. 
 According to him also, the nests of F. fusca show great 
 irregularity, because each ant works independently of the 
 others. Every sort of material earth, grass-stalks, snail- 
 shells, leaves, roots and any outside support suits them to 
 build with or upon. On the great dome of the nest many 
 smaller domes or towers may 'often be observed, which 
 however generally disappear in the autumn.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 77 
 
 Especially must it not be thought that all ant nests are 
 constructed on the same or on a similar plan, as would of 
 course be the case if the little architects followed an innate 
 instinct. On the contrary, the greatest diversity is found 
 according to circumstances, seasons, genera, and species. 
 Even the same species builds very differently under differ- 
 ences of place, climate, or other circumstances. Thus, for 
 example, the Lasius acervorum never builds under stones in 
 plains, while in the Alps it shows a, decided inclination to 
 build under the same stones as the species Myrndca. This 
 circumstance alone omitting others would suffice to set 
 the intelligence of ants above those of bees, which are known 
 to build their cells everywhere on the same almost un- 
 changeable model. 
 
 " The characteristic trait of the building of ants," says 
 Forel, "is the almost complete absence of an unchangeable 
 model, peculiar to each species, such as is found in wasps, 
 bees, and others. The ants know how to suit their indeed 
 little perfect work to circumstances, and to take advantage 
 of each situation. Besides each works for itself and on 
 a given plan, and is only occasionally aided by others when 
 these understand its plan. Naturally many collisions occur, 
 and some destroy that which others have made. This also 
 gives the key to understanding the labyrinth of the dwelling. 
 For the rest, it is always those workers which have dis- 
 covered the most advantageous method, or which have shown 
 the most patience, which win over to their plan the majority 
 of their comrades and at last the whole colony, although 
 not without many fights for supremacy. But if one succeeds 
 in obtaining a second to follow it, and this second draws the 
 others after it, the first is soon lost again in the crowd." 
 
 Espinas also observed (" Animal Communities," German 
 ed. 1879, p. 371) that each single ant made its own plan 
 and followed it until a comrade, which had caught the idea, 
 joined it, and then they worked together in the execution 
 of the same plan. 
 
 This observation so plainly manifesting the republican 
 principle of ant-life, and proving that each individual enjoys 
 a far greater freedom of thought, than, for example, a bee, 
 strictly bound down to one method had already been made 
 by Huber, who resumes the account of his observations on 
 wall-building ants, and especially on F. fusca, with the
 
 78 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 following words, applicable to the building of all ants with- 
 out distinction : 
 
 " I am convinced by this and a thousand similar observa- 
 tions, that each ant builds for itself independently of its 
 companions. The first which conceives an easily executed 
 plan at once lays the foundations. The others have only to 
 continue what the first began, and learn by looking at the 
 commenced work. But all understand how to improve their 
 work according to circumstances ; they have no other cutting 
 instruments than their teeth, no other guide than their 
 feelers, and no other trowels than their forefeet, of which, 
 last they make use in really marvellous fashion to separate 
 the damp earth and to make it firm. Herein consist their 
 mechanical and material appliances ! They must therefore, 
 if they follow a merely mechanical instinct, pursue a geo- 
 metrical and unchangeable plan with slavish exactitude, 
 build the same walls, and make their arched roofs of the 
 same size ; we should then be neither astonished nor sur- 
 prised at their industry. But to build this irregular dome, 
 standing on so many stories, to divide conveniently the 
 therein contained rooms, to choose the best season for each 
 task, especially to direct their work according to tem- 
 porary circumstances, to utilise occasional advantages, 
 and to judge between the suitability of this or of that 
 operation, for all this capacities are required which approach 
 real intelligence, and which prove that this creature does 
 not act like an automaton, but like a being which is able to 
 grasp the object of its work." 
 
 In what concerns the various methods of building among 
 ants, Forel distinguishes not less than six or seven different 
 species, accordingly as the nests are dug or built, or are made 
 under flat stones or in wood and tree-trunks, under bark, 
 or in walls and cliffs, or in houses, etc. Among these 
 different species there may be recognised a great many 
 diversities and transitions, as well as resemblances of 
 building. The most frequent architectural style is that in 
 damp earth, already described, which is worked with jaws 
 and feet. When the work has to be done in dry earth or 
 sand, they scrape this up with their forefeet, and throw it 
 between their raised and spread-out hindlegs, in the same 
 way as dogs do in scratching. If the forelegs or their ex- 
 tremities are cut away, they can, as we have already said,
 
 ANTS AXD ANT LIFE. 79 
 
 no longer dig. They do indeed make attempts, but succeed 
 very badly. They then soil themselves and their larvae, 
 without being able to clean them, and at last give up wearied, 
 and remain only on the top of the nest. A great mistake 
 would, however, be made if it were thought that the scrap- 
 ing, digging, building, and wall-making of these little 
 creatures is, as the philosopher's instinct will have it, the 
 result of a tendency, changeless and compelling, placed in 
 the little mind of the ant. Jf this were the case it would be 
 impossible for some species of ants to seize as they do the 
 nests of others and establish themselves therein, although, 
 as Forel notices, the arrangements are often unsuitable for 
 them. They usually change the architecture a little, 
 especially outside, but as a rule the real builders can be very 
 quickly recognised if the nest be destroyed. An ant- 
 dwelling often changes its inhabitants in this way two, three, 
 four or more times, sometimes through voluntary and some- 
 times through forceful desertion. We shall see later that 
 there are also some species which do not build at all, but 
 leave building to their slaves. 
 
 Still more against the instinct theory are the already 
 mentioned differences of building of the same species under 
 changes of circumstances. " Many nests or many parts of 
 nests," says Forel, " ai-e only provisional, while others are 
 intended to last for years ; many show very different styles 
 in their different parts. The plan of building also is very 
 much changed accordingly as the nest is meant for a larger or 
 a smaller community. The outside appearance of the nest 
 is also very different, accordingly as it is entirely closed with 
 the exception of one hidden entrance, or opens with many 
 holes on the outside (and this is true not only of different 
 species but also of the same), or the population is large or 
 small. The large thickly populated nests of F. fusca are 
 found opening on all sides, and the small nests of F. san- 
 guinea completely closed, while the contrary is the rule." 
 
 "When danger threatens, for instance near a street, road, 
 or court, or when the surface of the earth is very hard, the 
 nests, mined or dug in the ground, betray their presence by 
 no sign, and can only be discovered by chance. The dug- 
 out earth is carried a long way off, and two or three con- 
 cealed holes suffice for inlet and outlet. Many of these 
 same ants at other places make a number of holes sur-
 
 80 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 rounded by the thrown up earth, the so-called " craters," 
 and thereby keep up communication with the outer world. 
 The earth between these craters is often so heaped up 
 that the whole has the appearance of a walled dome, 
 although nothing of the sort is intended. The ants which 
 generally build walled nests know how to make mined or 
 dug nests according to circumstances, and the reverse is 
 also the case. Timid species ^such as Myrmecina Latreillei) 
 make the passages in their dwellings so narrow that two can 
 scarcely pass each other, so as to protect themselves against 
 the incursions of hostile ants, while F.fusca seeks to guard 
 itself from the marauding excursions of slave-making 
 species by placing the outlet from its nest as far off as pos- 
 sible, and uniting it to the nest by a long and very winding 
 path. It is just the same with these nests as with the human 
 robber-caverns or knightly castles of the middle ages, 
 which had just such hidden ways of escape. Within the 
 nest two different sorts of passages are often found, whereof 
 the larger and more regular is for the use of all sexes, while 
 the slighter and narrow one, which is often hard tq find, is 
 for the workers only. 
 
 In nests built under flat stones it is above all important 
 to prevent the stone, after it is undermined, from sinking 
 and injuring the nest. In order to attain this object, the 
 ants make thick pillars and walls of earth between the 
 rooms and galleries, and the heavier the stone the thicker 
 its supports. For the rest, they choose their stone carefully, 
 which must be neither too large nor too small, neither too 
 thick nor too thin more especially the last, so that it may 
 not heat nor cool too rapidly. The nest is partly dug out, 
 partly built. Of these are generally the so-called " double 
 nests," which consist of nests built and inhabited by two or three 
 quite different species. These live beside each other peace- 
 fully, because their dwellings are separated from each other 
 by strong partition walls, which pass through the whole 
 thickness of the nest from above to below. If the stone 
 be lifted, the enmity or dislike breaks out, and nothing is 
 more comic than to see the haste wherewith each kind 
 seeks to save its own young in the lower rooms. 
 
 The most elegant dwellings, although constructed essen- 
 tially in the same way as those already described, are those 
 made by many species in wood, especially in old tree
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 81 
 
 trunks. They take care, above all things, that the wood 
 fibres shall remain in their natural position, but Otherwise 
 work in the most diverse fashions according to circum- 
 stances. Walls and pillars and buttresses run always 
 parallel with the wood fibres, while a covering wall is al- 
 ways left outside of at least a centimetre in thickness, which 
 is only pierced by a few entrances and outlets. If a 
 larger hole chances to be made in this outer covering the 
 inhabitants retire inwards, and try to stop up the opened 
 galleries and rooms with sawdust and other materials. 
 They also very often use in their building the spaces al- 
 ready made by other ants and insects, especially by the 
 larva? of the woodlouse. 
 
 " Imagine," says Huber, " the inside of a tree completely 
 gnawed out, with countless more or less horizontal stories, 
 five or six lines apart from each other, card-thick roofs 
 earned now on perpendicular partition-walls, now on a 
 number of little pillars, and in this way countless single 
 rooms or cells all in black-colored and smoked looking 
 wood, and then you will have a picture of these ant- 
 towns." 
 
 The Rev. H. C. McCook has published some very in- 
 teresting observations on a kind of wood- working ants in 
 America (Camponotus or Formica Pennsylvanicus, the 
 Pennsylvanian Carpenter, " Transactions of the American 
 Entomol. Soc., December, 1876). He describes a regular 
 system of galleries, passages, rooms, halls, and vaults, which 
 this ant made in a corner beam in an ironworks, in Blair 
 Co., Pa., and says that such nests in trees had been found 
 to attain the length of six feet. Forel has observed the 
 greatest diversities of building among the F. trundcola. It 
 can build walls like the blood-red ants, and use long beams 
 like the turf -ants. It can erect domes and secondary domes, 
 but can also build a nest under a stone. It can even 
 establish itself in old tree trunks, and utilise the concentric 
 layers of wood to make spacious rooms. The wood-building 
 ants also know how to utilise their materials in the most 
 diverse ways, and every material is good enough for them 
 if it serves their purpose. If beams fail they use round 
 poles, but these leave holes in the building and are less firm 
 The journals of the Scientific Society of Bern, for the year 
 1874 (p. 41), contain the account of an incident in which
 
 82 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 the wood ants (F. fnliginosa), in lack of wood, made a heap 
 of horse-chestnut leaves into a wood-like construction in a 
 beehive, with stories, rooms, and passages of communication. 
 Indeed this species can not only hollow out wood, but can 
 build walls, rooms, etc., out of sawdust, with the help of a 
 glandular secretion. It is easily recognised by its shining 
 black color, large head curved behind, and red-yellow feet. 
 As Blanchard says, its buildings defy description. 
 
 The species which build their nests in rocks and walls 
 have the most conveniences, since they can turn natural 
 clefts and crannies to account, and without much trouble 
 finish them with earth and sand. The making of passages 
 between the several parts of the nest demands the greatest 
 labor. J. T. Moggridge (" Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor 
 Spiders," London, 1873-4, pp. 43, 44,) relates an ingenious 
 observation very illustrative of the way in which ants arrange 
 their buildings according to circumstances, and of their 
 highly-developed intelligence and quickness : " The second 
 captive colony, taken on December 28th, with the wingless 
 green ant and quantities of larva?, formed a strong Contrast 
 with the previous one. Here the ants at once set to work 
 upon the construction of galleries and safety places for the 
 larva? below the even surface of garden mould on which I 
 
 had placed them within the jar This was done at 
 
 3.30 p.m., and by 9 that evening I found the aut.s most 
 busily at work, having in less than six hours excavated eight 
 deep orifices leading to galleries below, and surrounded these 
 orifices by crater-like heaps, made of the earth pellets which 
 
 they had thrown out On the following morning 
 
 the openings were ten in number, and the greatly increased 
 heaps of excavated earth showed that they must pro- 
 bably have been at work all night. The amount of work 
 done in this short time was truly surprising, for it must be 
 remembered that, eighteen hours before, the earth presented 
 a perfectly level surface, and the larva? and ants, now 
 housed below, found themselves prisoners in a strange place, 
 bounded by glass and walls, and with no exit possible. It 
 seems to me that the ants displayed extraordinary intelli- 
 gence in having thus at a moment's notice devised a plan 
 by which the superabundant number of workers could be 
 employed at one time without coining in one another's way. 
 The soil contained in the jar was of course less than a tenth
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 83 
 
 part of that comprised within the limits of an ordinary nest, 
 while the number of workers was probably more than a 
 third of the total number belonging to the colony. If, 
 therefore, but one or two entrances had been pierced in the 
 soil, the workers would have been for ever running against 
 one another, and a great number could never have got below 
 to help in the all-important task of preparing passages and 
 chambers for the accommodation of the larvas. These 
 numerous and funnel-shaped entrances admitted of the 
 simultaneous descent and ascent of large numbers of ants, 
 and the work progressed with proportionate rapidity. After 
 a few days only three entrances, and eventually only one 
 remained open. Yet for weeks this active work went on, 
 and the ants brought up such quantities of earth from below 
 that it became difficult to prevent them from choking up 
 the bottle containing their water, which they repeatedly 
 buried up to the neck. On January 10th the surface of the 
 earth was raised from an inch and a-half at its lowest to 
 three inches at its highest point above its original level, and 
 this bulk of excavated earth represented the amount of 
 space contained in their galleries and chambers constructed 
 below. It was not, however, until nineteen days after their 
 capture that the ants began to form systematic trains to 
 carry down the seeds which I placed for them on the sur- 
 face, and I suppose that they had required this time for the 
 construction and consolidation of the granary chambers." 
 
 Moggridge also observed on this occasion the fashion in 
 which the ants took away rootlets which pierced through 
 their galleries, belonging to seedlings growing on the surface 
 of the nest. Two ants worked together at this task, one of 
 which pulled at the free ends of the root, while the other 
 gnawed at the fibres where the strain was greatest, until the 
 root broke. There are many other well-known instances of 
 ! iniilar acts, mechanical and yet betraying a high degree of 
 reflective power or calculative ability on the part of one or 
 more ants, working together for the performance of a diffi- 
 cult task. Bingley relates (" Animal Biography," 6th ed., 
 London, 1824, iv., p. 173,) how a "gentleman from Cam- 
 bridge one day remarked an ant dragging along what, with 
 respect to its strength, might be denominated a piece of 
 timber. Others were severally employed, each in its own 
 way. Presently this little creature came to an ascent, where
 
 84 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 the weight of the wood seemed for a while to overpower 
 him : he did not remain long perplexed with it ; for three or 
 four others, observing his dilemma, came behind and pushed 
 it up. As soon, however, as he had got it on level ground, 
 they left it to his care and went to their own work. The 
 piece he was drawing happened to be considerably thicker at 
 one end than the other. This soon threw the poor fellow 
 into a fresh difficulty : he unluckily dragged it between two 
 bits of wood. After several fruitless efforts, finding it would 
 not go through, he adopted the only mode that even a 
 reasoning being, in similar circumstances, could have taken ; 
 he came behind it, pulled it back again, and turned it on its 
 edge; when, running again to the other end, it passed through 
 without difficulty." 
 
 Two exactly similar cases have been bi-iefly told to the 
 author. Herr F. Moll, of Worms, watched a wood-ant, 
 which was carrying a beech-nut obliquely between its jaws, 
 and wanted to pass through the rather narrow crevice in a 
 gnarled root. As it did not succeed after several attempts, 
 it retreated a few steps, laid down the husk on tlfe ground, 
 seized it by its naiTow end and drew it easily through the 
 crevice ! Could a man have done it better ? Dr. Ludwig 
 Nagel, of Schmolle, sends the author the following : he was 
 once on a summer day passing through a beautiful flowery 
 valley, and on the north side of a mountain wall with a 
 southern aspect, he came across an old decayed oak trunk ; 
 round this a swarm of ants were busied carrying building 
 materials to the hill, while others, relieved of their loads, 
 were coming back. He noticed one ant, laden with a bit of 
 wood, which could not manage its task, and always fell back 
 again after it had struggled forward a little way. A second 
 ant perceived this, and, coming to the aid of its friend, 
 caught hold of the wood, which was now carried to the 
 building between the two. Rather more complicated, but 
 therefore the more interesting, is an instance observed by 
 Herr Albert Peifer, a merchant of Liegnitz, and related in 
 the following words to the author : 
 
 "A fine autumn afternoon of the year 1866 enticed me 
 into a walk in an old fir wood ; some friends were with me. 
 An ant-hill, inhabited by the small black wood-ant, 
 attracted my attention to the greatest degree, as indeed would 
 have been the case with anyone who had for a long time
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 85 
 
 'Studied these animals, and had found system and order in 
 the apparent confusion. Amid the stirring work and move- 
 ment of the little creatures I soon noticed that six or eight 
 ants were busied in pushing away a green caterpillar, at 
 least two inches long, which was clinging painfully to a dry 
 twig. This appeared very difficult if not impossible for 
 them, as the caterpillar, which was far superior in strength 
 to the small creatures, would not yield to them and only held 
 on the more firmly. I called back my companions, who had 
 walked on, and willingly as we would have delivered the 
 poor caterpillar out of the hands of its assailants, the spec- 
 tacle was too interesting to spoil. As the ants now appeared 
 to perceive the uselessness of their former efforts, they sud- 
 denly, as though directed by a single will, united their 
 strength and forced the caterpillar on to its back, in which 
 position it could 110 longer hold fast, and must await its fate, 
 for good or for evil. Some of the ants pulled at their 
 victim, others helped by pushing, and so it went stormily to 
 one of the small entrances of the dwelling and down into 
 Hades, whereiiito we saw the caterpillar slowly disappear 
 for evermore." 
 
 E. Menault (" L'Intelligence des Animaux," Paris, 1872, 
 p. 6), when he was one day walking with Herr H. Delafoy, 
 a scientific friend, saw a number of ants busy in drawing the 
 wing of a cockchafer through the entrance of their nest. 
 Various methods, tried in various ways, failed, owing to the 
 narrowness of the opening. So the industrious little animals 
 began to widen the opening over and over again until the 
 passage was large enough. Another time Menault noticed a 
 single ant pulling a rose-chafer's leg with great effort and 
 loss of time over very unfavorable ground. At last, when 
 she got near the nest, her sisters came to her assistance, and 
 the booty was soon secured by their joint efforts. The way 
 in which ants close and watch the entrances and outlets of 
 their nests is also very interesting. Generally a number of 
 small openings are made on the top of the ant-hill, which 
 are closed by the workers in the evening, or when it rains, 
 or on the approach of danger, and are re-opened when 
 wanted. At other times the openings are made at the side 
 and are very much hidden. Often there is only a chief 
 opening with several secondary ones. In still other cases, 
 no opening is visible, and is only to be found, as already
 
 86 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 mentioned, at a great distance from the nest, with which it 
 is connected by a subterranean tunnel. 
 
 " If the nest of the yellow-red ants is watched at different 
 times during the day," says Blanchard, "the observer will be 
 surprised to see the alterations continually in progress. 
 Coming in the early morning, all in the dwelling seem asleep. 
 No entrances are to be found. At most, a few interspaces 
 suggest the idea that the inhabitants might make their way 
 through these little openings. Soon a few appear on the top 
 of the dome and run about. Gradually more and more 
 appear, and they may now be seen carrying little bits of 
 wood with which they clear out the entrances. If the 
 weather be fine, the most roomy passages and those which 
 communicate with the chief chambers within the nest are 
 opened, and now the whole community is busy and at work. 
 When evening approaches, the industrious insects close the 
 entrances. They wish to pass the night peacefully and 
 sheltered from foreign attacks. The doors are quickly shut 
 if a sudden shower penetrates. All hasten to this ta.-k so 
 quickly that the object is attained in a few moments." These 
 remarkable habits are very easy to observe, and yet Peter 
 Huber was the first to describe them and to show that they 
 were intentional. Huber also gives all particulars, relating 
 how the ants use little beams to close or to roof their galleries, 
 and cover the openings with them; and how they then, as 
 the work progresses, bring ever smaller pieces to the heap. 
 At last he exclaims : " Is not this the work of our car- 
 penters in petto, when they build the gable of a house. 
 Nature always appears to have made first the discoveries on 
 which we pride ourselves." Huber is right. If clear ob- 
 servers had existed among primitive men, the knowledge 
 which civilised nations have taken centuries to obtain would 
 have been won far more rapidly. 
 
 Forel says that all species of ants, without exception, keep 
 their dwellings more or less firmly shut, and only open them 
 when and for so long as they are required for the workers, or 
 for the swarming of the males and fertile females. For the 
 closure they use any materials which come handy, earth, little 
 stones, leaves, scraps of wood, pebbles, etc. Perty (" On 
 the Intellectual Life of Animals," 187G, p. 336, 2nd ed.) 
 relates after Hennings, that an English observer noticed that 
 ants put a thin piece of slate over the chief entrance of
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 87 
 
 their nest when rain threatened ; about fifty of them were 
 always required for pushing this backwards and forwards (?) 
 If this observation be correct, it proves that the ants under 
 certain circumstances know how to perform the task of 
 closing and opening their door in suitable fashion. 
 
 The doors are often guarded by special sentries, which 
 fulfil their important duty in various ways. Forel saw a 
 nest of the Colobopsis truncata, the two or three very small 
 round openings of which were watched by soldiers, arranged 
 so that their thick cylindrical heads stopped them up, just 
 as a coi-k stops up the mouth of a bottle. The same ob- 
 server saw the Myrmecina Latreillei defend themselves 
 against the invasions of the slave-making Strongylognathus, 
 by placing a worker at each of the little openings of the 
 nest, which quite stops up the opening either with its head 
 or abdomen. The Camponotus species also defend their nests 
 by stretching their heads in front of the openings, drawing 
 back the antennae. Each approaching enemy thus receives 
 a sharp blow or bite delivered with the whole weight of the 
 body. McCook noticed in the nests of the soon to be 
 described Pennsylvanian mound-building ants, the employ- 
 ment of special sentries, which lay watching within the nest 
 entrances, and sprang out at the first sight of danger to 
 attack the enemy ; and it was wonderful to see with what 
 swiftness the news of such an alarm spread through the 
 nest, and how the inhabitants came out en masse to meet the 
 enemy. The Lasius species defend their large, strong, and 
 very extensive nests against hostile attack or sieges with 
 equal courage and skill, while other timid species seek to 
 fly as speedily as possible with their larvae, pupae, and 
 fruitful queens. There is, as Forel tells us, a regular barri- 
 cade fight. Passage after passage is stopped and defended 
 to the uttermost, so that the assailants can only advance step 
 by step. Unless the latter are in an enormous majority, the 
 struggle may last a very long time with these tactics. During 
 this time, other workers are busy preparing subterranean 
 passages backwards for eventual flight. Generally such 
 passages are already made, and during a fight a new dome 
 of the Lasius may be seen rising at a distance, it not being 
 difficult for them to make this with the help of their extended 
 subterranean passages and communications. 
 
 In addition to these enforced changes of dwelling, there 
 
 G 2
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 are also voluntary changes made tolerably frequently, partly 
 for still unknown reasons ; but these changes do not take 
 place without previous mutual consultation and understand- 
 ing. Lespes has the following on such an occurrence : 
 
 " Ants sometimes change their dwellings because they are 
 too much in the shade, or are too damp, or from some other 
 unknown reason. One ant may then be seen approaching 
 another, and holding a consultation with it, conferring by 
 means of continual light touches on its head with its feelers. 
 The latter then places its feet together, and awaits events. 
 Its sister then seizes it in its jaws, and carries it to the place 
 where it proposes to form the new building. After some 
 time the twain return, and cariy other comrades in the same 
 way, until at last the larvae and pupae are picked up and trans- 
 ported to the new place." Some species, continues Lespes, 
 appear to possess a richer language ; for they are able to 
 impart to each other the project of a change of dwelling, 
 without, as generally happens, carrying their comrades to 
 the new abode. For the rest, a fuller account of their 
 language and of the very decided ability of the ants to com- 
 municate with each other will be given later. 
 
 Complicated and diverse as are the styles of building of 
 European ants, they yet seem to be far surpassed herein by 
 their sisters in tropical lands, which are far more numerous 
 and larger both as to species and individuals, although, unfortu- 
 nately, we have little exact and trustworthy knowledge of them. 
 Many South American plains are, according to Lund, rendered 
 quite uneven by countless ant-hills, which often have a circum- 
 ference of from thirty to forty feet above ground, and of two 
 hundred feet below. Stockes found ant-hills in North-West 
 Australia of pyramidal shape, of a height of thirteen feet, 
 which were so firm and broad that a man could stand on 
 them without breaking through. The buildings of Myrmica 
 Texana (Texas) are, according to Buckley, a hundred feet 
 long, and single large rooms stretch underground from ten 
 to eighteen feet ; the earth thrown out from within looks 
 like a regular crater. Far from the nest proper, the outlets 
 open from long subterranean tunnels, through which the 
 workers bring grain, leaves, and fruits to their underground 
 city. The Isan in Paraguay, apparently one of the Atta, 
 builds nests of clay, according to Rengger, which are twenty 
 feet in diameter, and many feet high, and which spread far
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 89 
 
 down into the ground and have many doors. From these 
 doors go as many neatly levelled tunnels, often yards long, 
 by which the swarms of ants march in, laden with building 
 materials and booty. 
 
 Bingley (p. 180) relates that, in Captain Cook's expedi- 
 tion in New South Wales, they saw ants " as green as a 
 leaf, which live upon trees and build their nests of various 
 sizes, between that of a -man's head and his fist. These 
 nests are of a very curious structure : they are formed by 
 bending down several of the leaves, each of which is as 
 broad as a man's hand, and glueing the points of them 
 together so as to form a purse. The viscous matter used 
 
 for this purpose is an animal juice Their method of 
 
 bending down leaves we had no opportunity to observe ; but 
 we saw thousands uniting all their strength to hold them 
 in this position, while other busy multitudes were employed 
 within, in applying this gluten, that was to prevent their 
 returning back. To satisfy ourselves that the leaves were 
 bent and held down by the efforts of these diminutive arti- 
 ficers, we disturbed them in their work ; and as soon as 
 they were driven from their station, the leaves on which 
 they were employed sprang up with a force much greater 
 than we could have thought them able to conquer by any 
 combination of their strength." The observers were 
 punished for their destructiveness by being severely stung 
 by the ants. A similar account is given by the same ob- 
 servers of two other species, of which one made their nests 
 in branches, like the European wood- ants, the other by 
 hollowing out the roots of living trees.
 
 90 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ROAD-MAKING. 
 
 THE ants show almost more cleverness, circumspection, 
 and acuteness in utilising given circumstances or in 
 conquering natural difficulties than even in building their 
 dwellings, in making roads which in their various businesses 
 carried on in and out of the home are naturally of the 
 greatest importance to them. The subterranean tunnels 
 serve sometimes as means of communication with other ant 
 colonies, or with the several parts of an extensive nest; 
 sometimes as has been said, to hide the entrance of the nest, 
 sometimes as roads to a place where food is to beobtained, 
 as for instance sweet sap or the milch-cow Aphides : for all 
 these purposes open uncovered ways are also used, just ac- 
 cording to circumstances. They always choose the shortest 
 way and the most convenient and advantageous method of 
 obtaining their object. They will also use an already pre- 
 pared ground, on which they can pass backwards and for- 
 wards undisturbed for a certain distance, without actually 
 making a road, as for example the base of a wall, or a fence, 
 or the edge of a walk. Where this cannot be done, a 
 special path is made, levelled and cleared from all obstacles, 
 such as dried leaves. Thus regular high roads are built in 
 wooded meadows from one nest to another ; the grass is 
 first mown, and then a firm foundation of cement 
 and sand is laid, and on this again a raised embank- 
 ment, on which they run actively to and fro. In a 
 wood, where the making of the road itself is very 
 easy, but where falling leaves and such like obstacles 
 block the way, the ants give it a certain width, often of as 
 much as two decimetres, or deepen it a little, while in 
 meadows wherein the construction is. as described, difficult 
 but lasting, the road is only from four to six centimetres in 
 width. They do not begin their roads, as might be expected,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 91 
 
 from their nests outwards, but spread themselves over all 
 the lines whereon roads are to be made (as in the building of 
 a new nest), begin the work simultaneously at all points, 
 and then behave just as men do in making a railway, high- 
 road, or similar work. The roads sometimes extend to a 
 distance of eighty and even of a hundred yards from the nest, 
 and eight or ten of thes^ will be made from a large nest. 
 The wood ants, as a rule,, make no roads, as their passage 
 from one tree to another is attended with no difficulty. 
 
 The covered ways, galleries, or tunnels are, as a rule, 
 built by those ants which visit their milch-cows, the Aphides, 
 secretly, and need to hide these from other ants or from 
 their countless other enemies. If the tunnel passes through 
 a quiet out-of-the-way place, where no danger is to be 
 feared, they leave off the roof and the road is open. Forel 
 saw such a road, two centimetres broad and one centimetre 
 high, built of earth and covered in, which was taken up a 
 low wall and down again on the other side, merely to secure 
 a safe way from a court into a garden. Sometimes they 
 walled round the stalks or stems of the plants on which 
 they kept Aphides, so that the latter were quite shut in, and 
 made rooms for them of the leaves of the plants. Lasius 
 brunneus, the brown ant, almost lives by keeping very large 
 cochineal insects, and protects its roofs by help of their 
 rotted skins. In the same way Kermes, and especially the 
 gall-insects, are sometimes regularly walled in by ants. 
 Their prison is generally tolerably large, and has small 
 openings, by means of which the caretakers slip in and out, 
 while the outgoing of the prisoners is prevented. Forel 
 -aw such a prison, shaped like a cocoon, about a centimetre 
 long, hanging on an oak branch, and containing Aphides, 
 which were carefully looked after by the ants. In the 
 chapter on " Cattle-care and milking" more will be said on 
 this. 
 
 Forel had special opportunities of observing that ants are 
 able to perfect themselves in their tunnel-making (as in their 
 various other works). He kept a colony of M. coespitum 
 (turf-ants) imprisoned in a tray walled round with pulverised 
 gypsum, so that the gypsum gave way under climbing and 
 the ants fell down. This went on for a fortnight, until it 
 struck the ants to try to escape by making a tunnel through 
 the powder. Many efforts were rendered futile by the fall
 
 92 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 of the loose gypsum ; but at last, after many failures, the 
 little creatures managed to make a way right through the 
 thickness of the wall. Forel then blocked the tunnel by 
 slightly shaking the gypsum. But the ants had clearly 
 become perfect at their work, for they quickly remade the 
 tunnel through the mass that had fallen in. Forel then left 
 them at peace, and they escaped with their larvse and pupae. 
 Perhaps yet more interesting than the roads, are the stations 
 which the ants make for the shelter of the provisions, or of 
 the workers when the way is long. They are generally 
 small nests, for the reception of the workers when wearied 
 or overpowered by the sun, or for a warm shelter if they 
 are benighted. If a sudden shower of rain overtakes them, 
 they also resort to them. Sometimes these are mere holes 
 in the earth, but at other times they are thorough little nests. 
 dome-covered, which gradually can be made to serve as real 
 nests. Mention will be made later of the way in which 
 harvesting ants make regular depots for grain on the road. 
 
 In addition to these stations, there are also suburbs and 
 dependencies of the large nests, which receive the surplus 
 population. New nests thus often spring up under such 
 circumstances in the neighborhood of the old one, and this 
 enlargement gradually grows to an enormous circumference 
 round the original spot. Forel saw a colony of F. exsecta, in 
 a wood-clearing on Mont Tendre, which consisted of more 
 than two hundred nests, and covered a space of 150 200 
 square metres. A similar, but somewhat smaller colony, of 
 F. jjressilabris, is found in the Petite Saleve near Geneva. 
 The whole space is covered with stunted shrubs, on which 
 the ants keep their Aphides. All the members of such a 
 colony, even those from the furthermost nests, recognise 
 each other and admit no stranger. This fact, together with 
 the great number of inhabitants, which all hold together, 
 gives such a colony unusual strength ; and one can, with 
 Huber, unhesitatingly 'compare their several nests to the 
 several cities of one and the same country, or still better 
 with those of one and the same Republic. The whole realm 
 rises to repel an attack from without, and the subterranean 
 as well as surface means of communication between the 
 different nests make possible a rapid concentration of the 
 marshalled war-forces on a single point, just as is the case in a 
 human kingdom by means of many and well-arranged railways.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 93 
 
 But all this falls far short of the description given by the 
 Rev. Mr. McCook, in the Trans, of the Amer. Entomol. Soc.,. 
 Nov., 1877, of the " Ant Town " he discovered in the Alleg- 
 hany mountains, North America. This town, built and in- 
 habited by the F. exsecto'ides (Forel), or mound-making ant 
 of America, lies on the eastern side of the Brush mountain^ 
 Pennsylvania, not far from Hollidaysburg, and consists of 
 no less than 1600 1700 single colonies or nests, which rise 
 in cones to a height of from two to five feet and have a 
 circumference of from ten to fifty-eight, covering a plain of 
 about fifty acres in extent. Beneath each nest is an extensive 
 system of subterranean galleries and roads, which often 
 stretch to a length of sixty feet to the neighboring trees and 
 food resorts. McCook reckoned that these remarkable 
 buildings, compared with the size of their architects, are a 
 thousand times as large as the buildings of men. The in- 
 habitants of all these nests are bound together in strict 
 alliance and never carry on war against each other, and may 
 therefore be rightly regarded as a large republican common- 
 wealth, or a kind of Federative Republic. Injuries suffered 
 by these nests or hill-dwellings, are very rapidly repaired by 
 their united forces. Small animals, thrown on the surface 
 of the nests, as large spiders, snakes, etc., are torn to pieces 
 with equal rapidity, and gnawed down to the chitin, or 
 skeleton. 
 
 To return once more to the covered ways, or tunnels ; 
 these are built for another reason than that named above 
 viz., for protection against the sun. As much as ants love 
 the mild spring or autumn, and know how to utilise it for the 
 benefit of their young, so much do they avoid the hot mid- 
 day sun of summer, which quickly shrivels up their little 
 bodies. On very hot days they therefore work in the 
 mornings and evenings, and take a siesta in the middle 
 of the day. They thus behave exactly as men do in hot 
 countries and on hot days. Lespes noticed this with Atta 
 barbara, one of the species of harvesting ants of the Medi- 
 terranean shores, and Moggridge remarked the same, 
 Lespes also saw this species working by moonlight at night, 
 while Moggridge saw them working " when there was 
 neither moon nor stars to be seen." This, as well as the 
 observations of Gould, Huber, Kirby, Ratzeburg, Forel, 
 and others, resolves the question so much ventilated since.
 
 94 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Aristotle, as to the night work of ants. Aristotle held the 
 view, so much challenged later, that ants worked at night 
 during the time of full moon, and this has since been proved 
 to be thoroughly correct. Forel watched a dwelling of the 
 turf-ants, which scarcely left their nest during the whole 
 day through a very hot period in the month of July, and 
 came out in thousands during the evening, swarming over 
 till the roads and visiting the Aphides in the trees. He also 
 found them on a very dark night by means of a lantern, in 
 company with their beloved nurslings on trees and bushes. 
 This activity continued during the whole night and had not 
 decreased by the early morning. Forel repeated this obser- 
 vation with several other species, as well as in his vivarium. 
 When it was very warm, he saw its inhabitants busy the 
 whole night through ; they slept on the contrary in cold 
 weather. In the spring, things are just the opposite ; the ants 
 then, as a rule, leave their nest about eight or nine o'clock 
 in the morning, and return at about five or six. The ants 
 which work in the dark appear to find their way by help of 
 their antennae, while such as have comparatively smaller 
 feelers and more highly-developed eyes (as Polyergux rvfes- 
 cens, F. rufa, etc.) generally prefer day to night. Their 
 movements at night are also slow and measured, while they 
 move rapidly and hastily by day. Mr. McCook noticed his 
 ants at work equally day and night ; frost and cold caused 
 them to fall into a kind of doze, and all work and action 
 stopped. He did not see them come out at all during the 
 winter ; they then remained in the deepest and warmest part 
 of the nest. There is, after all, nothing unusual in the 
 night work of ants, seeing that all that is done within their 
 dwellings goes on in complete darkness. The wall-building 
 ants especially resort to night labor, because their walls do 
 not then dry so rapidly, and thus attain greater firmness ; 
 while the species which do not build prefer the day. In rainy 
 weather or on damp cloudy days, the builders also may be 
 seen at work. But if the little architects are suddenly over- 
 taken by the hot sun during their expeditions, or if their 
 road from being in the shade leads over a place upon which the 
 sun is shining brightly, they then quickly roof it over, or 
 roof the exposed part, with a gallery made of earth and 
 saliva ; or, if circumstances lend themselves to the proceed- 
 ing, they tunnel through the ground, and pass backwards
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 95 
 
 and forwards under its shelter. This method of road 
 making is specially used by the driver or marching ants 
 of West Africa (Annomma arcen^, which are very sensitive 
 to the burning rays of the African sun, and therefore 
 
 fjnerally work during night or under a cloudy sky. 
 hey have no fixed abode, and do no regular building, but 
 seek shelter under hollow tree-roots, overhanging rocks, and 
 other shady places. They march quite regularly through 
 the African woods in large closed columns two inches wide, 
 and seize all living things that they find on their way. They 
 are therefore a much dreaded plague. The ants laden with 
 food or larvae keep in the midst of the ranks, while outside 
 or on either flank march the soldiers, or officers that is, 
 individuals with enormously large heads and powerful jaws, 
 -which carry no burdens but only watch over the order and 
 safety of the column, act as scouts, bring in runaways or 
 laggards, and defy any attack. Very rarely, however, does 
 either man or beast venture upon one. 
 
 If it chances to one of these processions to be delayed in the 
 open until late in the morning, either by rich booty or by 
 other hindrance, the travellers quickly cover their path with 
 tin arched roof of earth or dirt, moulded together with 
 saliva. If long grass, on the other hand, yields them suf- 
 ficient shelter against the destructive sunrays they cease 
 this work. These ants live by making marauding excur- 
 sions, and they take their name from the fact that they drive 
 all living things before them. Even large animals suffer 
 from their attacks, and it is said by the natives that the boa- 
 constrictors, when they have crushed their victim in their 
 deadly coils, before they begin to devour it search over a 
 wide circle of at least a quarter of a mile in diameter, in 
 order to see if an army of driver ants is on the march : if 
 one is near they glide away and leave their prey to the ants. 
 These suck the liquid juices from slain animals and then pull 
 the flesh, piece by piece, into their hiding place. If, during 
 their nightly marches they penetrate into a human abode, 
 it only remains for the dwellers to take to their heels and 
 fly at once, and this is done the more willingly as all the 
 vermin previously settled in the house, such as rats, mice, 
 snakes, lizards, cockroaches, spiders, bugs, etc., are totally 
 destroyed by the ants. It is true that pigs, fowls, etc., that 
 have been left behind by forgetf ulness or lack of time also fall
 
 96 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 victims to them. When the ants have departed, the owners 
 come home again. If their hiding place is flooded by 
 a tropical rainstorm, the ants crowd closely together into a 
 large heap, take the younger and weaker in the middle, and 
 pass over the water till they reach a dry place. Over 
 smaller streams they form a living bridge when on the 
 march, by clasping each other firmly and so forming a chain 
 by which the host crosses. By help of such chains also they 
 let themselves down from trees. 
 
 In South America there is a travelling, marching, or 
 foraging kind of ant, with exactly similar habits, about 
 which the English naturalist, Bates, in his " Travels on the 
 Amazon," has published a complete account, and of which 
 more will be said further on.* It is, however, a suitable 
 place for dealing more fully with another non-European 
 species, which has a special interest. It is the Bi-azilian 
 travelling or visiting ant, Mi/rmica, or Atta, or JEcodoma 
 cephalotes, sometimes called Sa-uba. They are usually 
 known by the name of umbrella-ants, because they are seen 
 marching in long crowded columns, each holding up between 
 its jaws a generally round bit of leaf, about the size of 
 a sixpence. They, however, do not use these bits of 
 leaf as sunshades, as was thought, but for roofing in and 
 covering their very extensive domed dwellings. The 
 Sa-iiba is a terrible plague, for it strips the most valuable 
 trees, namely the coffee-plants and orange trees, of their 
 leaves, and by its countless numbers makes agriculture al- 
 most impossible in some places. Lund relates that he one 
 day passed a tree in full leaf, and heard a patter like heavy 
 rain although the sky was quite clear. He went closer, and 
 saw an ant hard at work on every leaf-stalk. When the 
 leaf-stalk was gnawed through the leaf fell to the ground. 
 A still more remarkable scene was going on at the foot of 
 the tree. The ground was covered with ants, which seized 
 the leaves as they fell in heaps, and bit them in pieces. In 
 the space of an hour all was over. The tree was stripped, 
 the leaves cut up, the pieces carried away. The famous 
 traveller, Dampier (see " Bingley," p. 171)), saw similar trains 
 of these umbrella -ants, which, as he put it, looked like a 
 stream of moving pieces of leaves, under which the insects 
 
 * [The migrating ants of Cayenne, the " Ants of Visitation " (Mme.. 
 Merian), and the Chasseur-ants of Trinidad, have similar habits. TK.]
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 97 
 
 carrying them are quite hidden. Yet they moved very 
 rapidly, and the whole road or path looked perfectly green. 
 
 Dr. Fr. Ellendorf, of Wiedenbriick, who has lived many 
 years in Central America, writes as follows to the author on 
 this remarkable animal : " The umbrella-ants belong to the 
 most interesting of the ant-species. 1 often met them in 
 Costa Rica at the beginning of the dry season, hurrying in 
 millions towards the coffee plantations, or returning to the 
 domestic hearth, each carrying a little green flag on its 
 head. I often watched their busy, industrious ways, and 
 once let myself be so led away by them that I tied up my 
 mule and walked along the procession to find the nest. But 
 as at the end of half-an-hour I had not succeeded, I turned 
 back for want of time. A few years ago, later, I had more 
 time and opportunity for watching them. Soon after the 
 commencement of the dry season the grass on the hill-sides 
 is dried up by the rays of the tropical sun, and the ants 
 then begin to visit the coffee plantations. What work and 
 patience to provide for their wants ! It would be quite impos- 
 sible for them to creep even through short grass with loads 
 on their heads for miles. They therefore bite off the grass 
 close to the ground for a breadth of about five inches, and 
 throw it on one side. Thus a road is constructed, which is 
 finally made quite smooth and even by the continual passing 
 to and fro of millions upon millions night and day. As 
 soon as they have reached the plantation they climb up the 
 trees, and each ant in about a quarter of an hour has cut 
 out of a leaf by its mandibles a crescent shaped piece, half 
 an inch long ; it holds this firmly over its head and sets off 
 homewards. If the road is looked down upon from a height 
 on the way back, with these millions thickly pressed together 
 and all moving along with these green bannerets on their 
 heads it looks as though a giant green snake were gliding 
 slowly along the ground, and this picture with its greenish- 
 yellow background is so much the more striking that all 
 these bannerets are swaying backwards and forwards. 
 
 " At the end of the war in Nicaragua I lived for a long 
 time in the little town of Xivas. On an excursion after 
 butterflies I one day met a laden train and seized the oppor- 
 tunity of watching the creatures more closely. I first 
 wished to see how they would manage if I put an obstacle 
 in their way. Thick, high grass stood on either side of their
 
 98 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 narrow road, so that they could not pass through it with the 
 load on their heads. I placed a dry branch, nearly a foot in 
 diameter, obliquely across their path, and pressed it down so 
 tightly on the ground that they could not creep underneath. 
 The first comers crawled beneath the branch as far as they 
 could, and then tried to climb over, but failed owing to the 
 weight on their heads. Meanwhile the unloaded ants from 
 the other side came on, and when these succeeded in climb- 
 ing over the bough there was such a crush that the unladen 
 ants had to clamber over the laden, and the result was a 
 terrible muddle. I now walked along the train, and found 
 that all the ants with their bannerets on their heads were 
 standing still, thickly pressed together, awaiting the word of 
 command from the front. When 1 turned back to the 
 obstacle, I saw with astonishment that the loads had been 
 laid aside by more than a foot's length of the column, one 
 imitating the other. And now work began on both sides of 
 the branch, and in about half an hour a tunnel was made 
 beneath it. Each ant then took up its burden again, and 
 the march was resumed in the most perfect order. The road 
 led towards a cocoa plantation, and here I soon discovered 
 the building which I afterwards visited daily. As I again 
 went thither one day I was met, at a considerable distance 
 from the nest, by a closely pressed column coming thence, 
 and all the ants laden with leaves, beetles, pupae, butterflies, 
 etc.; the nearer I came to the nest, the greater was the 
 activity. It was soon plain to me that the ants were in the 
 act of leaving their dwelling, and I walked along the train 
 to discover the new abode. They had gone for some dis- 
 tance along the old road, and had then made a new one 
 through the grass to a cooler place, lying rather higher. 
 The grass on the 'new road was all bitten off close to the 
 ground, and thousands were busy carrying the path on to 
 the new building. At the new home itself was an unusual 
 stir of life. There were all sorts of laborers architects, 
 builders, carpenters, sappers, helpers. A number were busy 
 digging a hole in the ground, and they carried out little 
 pellets of earth and laid them together on end to make a 
 wall. Others drew along little twigs, straws, and grass- 
 stalks, and put them near the place of building. I was 
 anxious to know why they had quitted their old home, and 
 when the departure was complete, I dug it up with a spade. .
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 99 
 
 At a depth of about a foot and a half I found several 
 tunnels of a large marmot species, the terror of cocoa 
 planters, because in making their passages they gnaw off the 
 thickest roots of the cocoa plants. The interior of the ant 
 hill had apparently fallen in through these mines. Unfor- 
 tunately I was unable to follow further the progress of the 
 new building, for I was obliged to leave the next day for 
 Sao Juan del Sur. When I returned at the end of a week 
 the building was finished, and the whole colony was again 
 busy with the leaves of the coffee plants." 
 
 The most detailed accounts of these remarkable ants are 
 given by H. D. Bates ('' The Naturalist on the River 
 Amazon," London, 1863). According to him, also, the 
 Sa-nba is a terrible pest in Brazil, and makes agriculture 
 impossible in many districts. Their workers fall into three 
 distinct classes, and vary in size from two to seven lines. 
 The domes of their nests, often forty yards in circumference, 
 rise only two feet from the ground, and guard the entrances 
 to their extensive underground galleries. These entrances 
 are generally closed, and are only opened under special cir- 
 cumstances. A large hollowed out chamber, of from four 
 to five inches in diameter, is found in the interior of the 
 nest. The habit of the Sa-uba of cutting off and carrying 
 away large quantities of leaves has long been known. The 
 columns then resemble a large mass of moving leaves. 
 Near their nests are found heaps of such rounded bits of 
 leaves, and these are always carried off on the following 
 day. Bates often saw them at work, and noticed that they 
 cut a half-circle in the upper face of the leaf with their 
 razor-like mandibles, and then pulled it away from the uncut 
 side by a sudden jerk. It was often thrown down to the 
 comrades waiting below, but as a rule each ant marched off 
 with its own piece. Cultivated trees attract them more 
 than any other. The leaves serve as roofs for their dwell- 
 ings and as a protection against tropical rains for their 
 young. Some of the laborers pull the leaves along ; others 
 put them in their right places and cover them with a layer 
 of earthy matter brought up from the depths of the nest. 
 
 The Rev. H. McCook (toe. cit., 1879, p. 84) watched the 
 same kind of ants in Texas, where they are called Brazilian 
 or cutting-ants. Their trains seemed to him like a pro- 
 cession of Lilliputian Sunday-school children, carrying their
 
 100 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 flags over their heads. The door of the nest was opened for 
 each excursion, and then closed again by the help of dry 
 twigs, leaves, and other rubbish. The chief work was done 
 by the larger, the lighter by the smaller individuals, or 
 " castes." The opening and closing of the nest was per- 
 formed, as a rule, mornings and evenings, at a regular hour 
 and in regular succession. McCook also observed a systematic 
 division of labor in the leaf-cutting and the carrying away 
 of the pieces, the " soldiers " only acting as guards aud as 
 leaders. Trees with thin leaves were preferred by the wise 
 little animals, and the leaves were made into a kind of paper- 
 like mass, in the interior of the nest, by means of their jaws 
 and their saliva, so as to serve for building the nest and for 
 the making of single cells or larval chambers. Possibly 
 they live on the juices of the leaves. The larva? are cared 
 for, and the mining or working in the earth is chiefly done, 
 by the smaller individuals or castes, the so-called minors, 
 while the larger ones do the outside work and are helped in 
 the daily opening and shutting of the doors by the smallest 
 ones. These smallest ants are, according to McCook, very 
 brave and often do yeoman's service to the large-headed 
 soldiers. 
 
 The subterranean workers of this remarkable genus are 
 very clever. The Rev. H. Clark reports from Rio de 
 Janeiro, that the Sa-ubas have made a regular tunnel under 
 the bed of the river Parahyba, which is there as broad as 
 the Thames at London, in order to reach a storehouse which 
 is on the opposite bank. Bates tells us that close to the 
 Magoary rice-mills, near Para, the ants bored through the 
 dam of a large reservoir, and the water escaped before the 
 mischief could be remedied. In the Para Botanical Gar- 
 dens an enterprising French gardener did everything he 
 could to drive the Sa-ubas away. He lit fires at the chief 
 entrances of their nests, and blew sulphur vapor into their 
 galleries by means of bellows. But how astonished was 
 Bates when he saw the vapor come out at no less a distance 
 than seventy yards ! Such an extension have the subterra- 
 nean passages of the Sa-ubas. 
 
 Ants which have invaded houses and settled therein are 
 attacked in Brazil by the so-called u Ant-master " in similar 
 fashion ; he pumps smoke into their passages to kill them, 
 after he has stopped up all the outlets. As soon as the ants
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIKE. 101 
 
 mark that something is amiss, they pick up their eggs, larvae, 
 and pupffi and try to escape. But when they find that all 
 the outlets have been stopped, they at once change their 
 plan, lay down their burdens, and begin to dig new ways 
 out. These also are stopped, and they try again and again 
 until all are killed. 
 
 McCook saw near Austin (Texas) a hole of the Sa-uba 
 twelve feet in diameter -and fifteen feet deep, from which 
 more than a hundred subterranean passages, hundreds of 
 feet in length and from two to six feet deep, ran to the 
 nearest trees. 
 
 In addition to the destruction wrought by the Sa-uba on 
 the trees and in the ground, the natives suffer by the plun- 
 dering at night of their corn and flour stores. Bates was at 
 first inclined to lend no credence to current tales of this 
 nature, but he was soon convinced by his own suffering 
 therefrom. While he was living in an Indian town on the 
 Tapajoz, his servant awaked him many hours before sunrise 
 with the cry that the rats were plundering his baskets filled 
 with fariuha or mandioca-meal.* As the article was then 
 rare and very dear he got up, and found that the noise 
 arising from the robbery bore very little resemblance to that 
 made by rats. He struck a light, and saw a broad column 
 of thousands of Sa-uba ants, which were carrying the con- 
 tents of his baskets out through the doors as quickly as 
 possible. Each one carried a grain of farinha, which was 
 often larger and heavier than its bearer, and it was amusing 
 to see the smaller ones regularly tumbling over with their 
 load. The baskets were quite covered with them, and 
 hundreds were busy cutting out the dried leaves which 
 served as lining to the baskets. It was this that made the 
 noise that had been heard. The servant declared that they 
 would quite empty the two baskets during the night, if they 
 were not driven away. They therefore tried to kill them 
 with wooden clogs, but new hosts took the places of the 
 slain. At last Bates drove them away with gunpowder, 
 which he scattered on the ground and fired. McCook also 
 saw the Texan cutting-ants plunder a wheat-store and cariy 
 the grains to their nest. 
 
 * [Farinha, or mandioca meal, consists of grains resembling tapioca, 
 and is obtained from the same root. Tapioca is pure starch, while 
 farinha is starch mixed with woody fibres. TR.]
 
 102 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HARVESTING ANTS. 
 
 BATES could not understand, judging by what he says, 
 what the ants wanted with the hard, dry mandioca 
 grains. If he had been as familiar with harvesting ants as 
 we now are thanks to the interesting publications of his 
 countryman, J. T. Moggridge he would not have been left 
 in doubt. It has been already shown in the historical 
 review given above (chap, v.) that the habit of ants in 
 Southern countries of gathering corn and using it as stored 
 up food, was well known in ancient times ; and the belief 
 remained until later observers (Swammerdamj Gould, 
 Christ, Latreille and others) rose up against it, and de- 
 clared that the whole account of harvesting ants was a 
 fable. Huber himself spoke most decidedly against it, and 
 was, indeed, supported by very good grounds. He main- 
 tained that, to begin with, the parts of the ant's mouth were 
 very unfitted for eating hard corn, and that they could only 
 feed on soft matters or fluids ; and that, secondly, a storing 
 up of food for winter provision was quite unnecessary, be- 
 cause they hibernated during the cold weather, and needed 
 no food. But if by chance, says Huber, a warm day comes 
 in the winter and wakes them up, they always have at hand 
 an adequate number of Aphides, which will also have been 
 aroused by the warm rays of the sun, and from which they 
 can obtain nourishment. So far as the strong mandibles of 
 the ant are concerned, we have already said that they serve 
 as weapons or tools, and never for eating. 
 
 These views of Huber, the distinguished observer, silenced 
 for a long time all contradiction, and this the more because- 
 ants were never seen to stoi'e up corn in Northern lands, 
 save that occasionally they picked up grains of- corn, like 
 other things, and took them as building material to the nest. 
 The idea that ants were completely idle during the winter
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 103 
 
 must have been very generally held in Shakspere's time, for 
 the great bard makes the fool say to Kent, in " King Lear " 
 (act ii., scene 4): " We'll set thee to school to an ant, to 
 teach thee there's no laboring in the winter." The facts 
 given by Huber are perfectly correct, but the deduction 
 therefrom is incorrect. Huber and the earlier opponents 
 did not remember that the ancient stories came to us from 
 Greece and from the East, where the habits of the ants are 
 different from those of the North, in consequence of the 
 difference of the climate. But in the North also we are not 
 quite without harvesting ants, and if Huber had searched 
 more carefully he might have found the solution of the 
 problem on the Petite Saleve, near. Geneva, as Forel did. 
 Of the two chief harvesting species in Europe (Aphcenogaster, 
 or Atta structor, and Atta barbard) the first is found in 
 Switzerland. This species, indeed, there collect different 
 grains, which also serve for food after the starch-flour con- 
 tained in them has been partly turned into sugar as the 
 result of germination. But although the two species named 
 are rare in the North, they are more numerous in Southern 
 Europe and especially on the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 and both Lespes and Moggridge have observed and accurately 
 described their habits. They do not hibernate there, owing 
 to the warmth of the climate, any more than do Northern; 
 ants if they are kept in a warm room, and therefore need 
 the winter-stores which they keep in the interior of their 
 nests in special granaries. Lespes often saw little heaps 
 of refuse in front of their nests, which they had made 
 of the husks after eating the corn, soft and swollen by 
 germination in the interior of the warm, damp nest. At 
 least the little radicle the tenderest and sweetest part of 
 the grain was always, says Lespes, eaten off. Moggridge 
 noticed these same rubbish heaps. In gathering corn they 
 observe, according to Lespes, that great economical principle 
 which plays so large a part in the industrial and general life 
 of man, and which we have learnt to recognise as the chief 
 reason of their successful industry in other ant labors, such 
 as digging, building, earth and leaf carrying, nursing the 
 young, etc. the principle, namely, of division of labor and 
 they carry it so far that if the road from the place where 
 they are gathering their harvest to the nest is very long, 
 they make regular depots for their provisions under large 
 
 H2
 
 104 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 leaves, stones, or other suitable places, and let certain 
 workers have the duty of carrying them from depot to depot. 
 Lespes sometimes found two or three such depots on a single 
 road. This is yet more strikingly illustrated by an observa- 
 tion of Moggridge, quite analogous to that which we have 
 already given from Bates on the leaf-cutting species. He 
 saw some ants climb up the haulms of the grain-bearing 
 ears, and shake or throw down the grains, while others wait- 
 ing below took up the fallen grains and carried them towards 
 the granaries. But they only took them to the entrance of 
 the nest, where other comrades were in waiting, and pulled 
 the grains inside. Moggridge also tried to deceive the little 
 robbers by scattering little china beads of the size and color 
 of the grain in their way. These were at first picked up and 
 carried off. But the wise little creatures soon found out 
 their mistake, and left the useless beads alone. But let us 
 rather allow Moggridge to tell his interesting experiences 
 himself, in a somewhat compressed form : 
 
 " I had scarcely set foot on the garrigue, as this kind of 
 wild ground is called to distinguish it from meadows or 
 terraced land, before I was met with a long train of ants, 
 forming two continuous lines, hurrying in opposite directions, 
 the one with their mouths full, the others with their mouths 
 empty. It was easy enough to find the nest to which these 
 
 ants belonged The nearly continuous double line 
 
 measured twenty-four yards. Even this gives but an in- 
 adequate idea of the number of ants actively employed in 
 the service of this colony, for hundreds of them were dis- 
 persed among the weeds on the terrace, and many were also 
 employed in sorting the materials and in attending to the 
 internal economy of the nest It is not a little sur- 
 prising to see that the ants bring in not only seeds of large 
 size and fallen grain, but also green capsules, the torn 
 stalks of which show that they have been freshly gathered 
 from the plant. The manner in which they accomplish 
 this feat is as follows. An ant ascends the stem of a 
 fruiting plant, of Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa pastoris) 
 let us say, and selects a well-filled but green pod about mid- 
 way up the stem, those below being ready to shed their 
 seeds at a touch. Then, seizing it in its jaws, and fixing its 
 hindlegs firmly as a pivot, it contrives to turn round and 
 round, and so strain the fibres of the fruit-stalk that at
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 105 
 
 length they snap. It then descends the stem, patiently- 
 backing and turning upward again as often as the clumsy 
 and disproportionate burden becomes wedged between the 
 thickly-set stalks, and joins the line of its companions on 
 
 their way to the nest Two ants also sometimes 
 
 combine their efforts, when one stations itself near the base 
 of the peduncle and gnaws it at the point of greatest 
 
 tension, while the other 'hauls upon and twists it I 
 
 have occasionally seen ants engaged in cutting the capsules 
 of certain plants drop them and allow their companions 
 below to carry them away ; and this corresponds with the 
 curious account given by JElian [see pp. 55, 56]. . . . Occa- 
 sionally [in addition to seeds] one or two may be detected 
 carrying a dead insect, or crushed landshell, the corolla of 
 a flower, a fragment of stick, or leaf, but I have never seen 
 Aphides brought into the nest or visited by this ant or by 
 Atta strnctor. It sometimes happens that an ant has mani- 
 festly made a bad selection, and is told on its return that 
 what it has brought home with so much pains is no better 
 than rubbish, and is hustled out of the nest and forced to 
 
 throw its burden away I have often amused myself 
 
 by strewing hemp and canary seed or oats, all of which form 
 heavy burdens for the ants, near their nests; and it is a 
 curious sight to see the eagerne.s and determination with 
 which they will drag them away. It is interesting also to 
 note how on the following day the husks of these seeds will 
 appear on the rubbish heap, or sometimes, after a shower of 
 rain, they will be brought out by the ants with the point of 
 the little root (the radicle or fibril as the case may be) 
 gnawed off. It frequently happens that on the wild hillside 
 the position of a nest of Atta barbara is indicated by the 
 presence of a number of plants growing on or round the 
 kitchen midden, which are properly weeds of cultivation, 
 and strangers to the cistus and lavender-covered banks of 
 the garrigue. These have sprung from seeds accidentally 
 dropped by the ants, and which they had obtained from the 
 lemon terraces The large mounds which may fre- 
 quently be found at the entrances of their nests, are nothing 
 more than the rubbish heaps and kitchen middens of each 
 establishment. These consist in part of the earth pellets 
 and grains of gravel which the ants bring out from their 
 nests when forming the subterranean galleries, but princi-
 
 106 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 pally of plant-refuse, such as the chaff of grasses, empty 
 capsules, gnawed seed-coats, and the like, which would 
 occupy much space if left inside the nest. While an army 
 of workers are employed in seeking and bringing in supplies, 
 others are busy sorting the materials thus obtained, stripping 
 off all the useless envelopes of seed or grain, and carrying 
 them out to throw away" (pp. 16 21). In sheltered places 
 these heaps grow to a considerable size. 
 
 In October, 1873, Moggridge found near the entrance of 
 a nest of A. structor such a rubbish heap, round in form, 
 which was twenty-seven inches in diameter and two inches 
 in thickness, its whole amount showing the existence of a 
 large quantity of seed within the nest. Indeed, when he 
 opened and more closely examined several nests, he found 
 masses of seeds carefully stored in large chambers. The 
 floor of these granaries is carefully levelled and cemented, 
 and can at once be distinguished by its appearance from the 
 surrounding ground. The rooms themselves were excep- 
 tionally large and regularly shaped, and were generally 
 abont the size of a watch-pocket. In each were found, on 
 an average, a hundred grains, and the quantity of grain in 
 a nest can be calculated, as it has often from eighty to a 
 hundred such single rooms, at about a pound or more. The 
 seeds belong to various kinds of plants, and Moggridge found 
 in one nest he opened the seeds of twelve different species, 
 belonging to at least seven distinct genera. The ants chiefly 
 gather the grains of cultivated cereals, doubless because they 
 contain more nourishment. 
 
 Moggridge was most surprised as to the still not quite 
 explained way in which the ants prevent the seeds from 
 germinating and growing. It is a matter of course that seeds 
 cannot remain long under the ground, within the damp and 
 warm nest without germinating, and sprouting forth into 
 grasses or herbs, and this would defeat the object with which 
 the ants garner them. But Moggridge found, among thou- 
 sands of seeds, in twenty-one nests, examined for this purpose, 
 only a few which had germinated, and of these nearly the 
 half were so mutilated that the growth would soon cease. 
 There can, therefore, be no doubt that the ants, by some 
 unknown way of treating the seeds, make them incapable 
 of germination, at least for some time namely, for weeks 
 or months. Moggridge was not in a position to solve the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 107 
 
 riddle by the experiments and trials he made. If he kept 
 the ants away from certain granaries the grain therein began 
 to sprout, proving that it was not outside circumstances but 
 some action on the part of the ants themselves which pre- 
 vented germination. In deserted or separated parts of the 
 nest, the seeds sprouted into grasses. 
 
 Perhaps the ants manage to purposely delay the sprouting 
 with some gummy substance, by mechanical stopping up of 
 the so-called eye of the seed, whereby damp penetrates 
 within. When the time comes for them to make use of the 
 seeds as food, this substance is then removed, and the seed 
 purposely moistened and caused to germinate. But in order 
 to prevent the further growth which would render the seed 
 useless for food, the ants bite or gnaw the growing sprout 
 or radicle, and then bring out the thus changed seed to dry 
 in the sun. They are then again granaried. When they 
 have become wet by falling rain, they are submitted to a 
 drying process in the same fashion. 
 
 It is well-known that seeds are much altered by germi- 
 nation, especially cereals, so that the starch contained in them 
 is changed into sugar and gums. At the same time the 
 hard integument is broken, the whole grain swells and be- 
 comes soft. It is then in the condition needed and desired 
 by the ants, which eat the soft part, especially their favorite 
 sugary matter, or satisfy therewith the large claims of their 
 growing larvse, and leave the shell or husk in the form of 
 refuse. This refuse forms the chief part of the rubbish 
 heaps described above. This whole process is just the same as 
 that adopted by brewers towards malt of barley or corn, so that 
 it cannot be doubted that ants are thoroughly acquainted with 
 one of the most important branches of human ingenuity and 
 industry nay, that according to all appearances they were 
 acquainted with it before men appeared on the surface of 
 the globe. " Instinct " cannot have thus taught them, but 
 only experience, and the methodical application of this oc- 
 casional experience to an appropriate end can only be the 
 result of a conscious act of reflection, which in certain 
 genera has gradually become a heritable mental habit. 
 They are, however, prudent enough not to allow themselves 
 to be so completely controlled by this inherited mental 
 habit, as not to spare themselves the troublesome harvesting 
 and garnering of corn, when they can obtain it or, as we
 
 108 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 now prefer to say, annex it more conveniently by thieving 
 or plundering, either from human stores and granaries, or 
 from the granaries of their own relations. Moggridge saw 
 a flourishing colony of Atta structor in the main street of 
 Mentone, which had settled itself down happily at the door 
 of a corn chandler, and carried up the grains falling from 
 oats and wheat. Another nest, in another part of the town, 
 obtained a part of its food from the canary seeds scattered 
 by some caged birds above. Moggridge also discovered 
 some secret robber-paths from several nests to human 
 granaries lying near, and the establishment of such passages 
 is the more possible as the species noticed by him, as Mogg- 
 ridge showed, are able to make tunnels and galleries in 
 hard stone (sandstone) ! 
 
 But the harvesting ants, like men, find it most convenient 
 and handiest to practice robbery and plundering on their 
 own brothers and relations. Perhaps they are also driven 
 in this direction by the warlike and battle-loving spirit in- 
 nate in most species of ants. The shining, coal black Atta 
 barbara chiefly distinguishes itself in this way, and often 
 carries on plundering fights that last for days and weeks. 
 Moggridge saw such a struggle that went on from the 18th 
 of January to the 4th of March. As often as he visited 
 the place during this time, he saw only scenes of battle and 
 plunder. The hostile nests lay about fifteen feet apart, and 
 the ants fought in the bitterest fashion over every grain of 
 corn. The ground was always covered with the slain and 
 the terribly mutilated. Most frequently the hinder part of 
 the body was bitten or dragged off. But the remaining 
 portion, consisting often of only the head and a few legs, clung 
 to the disputed grain with spasmodic force, and was often 
 pulled away with it by the victor. Only when a fighter 
 succeeded in injuring or tearing off the feelers of its rival, 
 did the latter appear quite palsied and defenceless. 
 
 Moggridge soon became convinced that the dwellers in 
 the upper nest plundered the granaries of the lower one, 
 while the dwellers in the latter tried to get back their stolen 
 seed, or in return to steal some food. The thieves which 
 had commenced the strife were clearly the stronger, and 
 whole trains of laden robbers took their way to the higher 
 nest, while comparatively few seeds found their way, in re- 
 turn, to the lower. Even this only succeeded occasionally,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 10$ 
 
 for some of the robbers were posted in front, which received 
 those coming down from the upper nest, and after they had 
 conquered all the obstacles in their road, chased them away 
 from 'their booty and took it back again. After the 4th of 
 March Moggridge observed no further hostilities, although 
 the lower, the plundered, nest was not deserted. But when he 
 visited the spot again in the October of the same year, he found 
 the latter quite empty and silent, while the robber nest 
 appeared to be full of life, and its granaries quite filled. In 
 another case, in a battle that had gone on for thirty-one 
 days, the plundered nest was finally wholly deserted, and! 
 when Moggridge opened it he found the granaries totally 
 empty. 
 
 Harvesting ants seize everything in time of need, even 
 quite other food if they can get it ; specially will they take 
 dead insects. Moggridge saw how a dead grasshopper, 
 which he had thrown in front of a nest, was carried inside.. 
 It was too large to pass through the door, so they tried to 
 dismember it. Failing in this, several ants drew the wings 
 and legs as far back as possible, while others gnawed 
 through the muscles where the strain was greatest. They 
 succeeded at last in thus pulling it in. Another day 
 Moggridge saw the wings of the animal appear on the 
 rubbish heap. Harvesting ants kept in captivity devoured 
 dead house flies and the larvae of bees and wasps, but never 
 troubled themselves about the Aphides or similar insects, so 
 much liked by other species. The sweet juices or plant ex- 
 cretions, so much sought after by most ants, appear also to- 
 be despised by them. On the other hand Moggridge saw 
 them gnaw the joints of a dead lizard, and one day watched 
 a fight between two middle-sized individuals of the genus 
 Atta barbara and a thick grey caterpillar an inch long> 
 which in vain made the most vigorous efforts to escape from 
 its little tormentors. Moggridge took the little group home 
 and put them in spirit. But even death could not compel 
 the two robbers to loose their grip of their prey. Mogg- 
 ridge, by throwing an artificial light on ants kept in cap- 
 tivity, had also the opportunity of seeing how they eat the 
 corn or its contents. In a group of ants he discovered one 
 holding fast to a white round lump. This lump was seen 
 to be the mealy part of a millet seed, and Moggridge saw 
 how two or three other ants tore off little particles with.
 
 110 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 their toothed mandibles, and then conveyed them to their 
 mouths. They repeated this often, before they gave place 
 to their comrades. 
 
 It follows from this that harvesting ants can also eat dry 
 substances, and are so far an exception to their fellows, 
 which, as before mentioned, are wont only to lick up fluid 
 or soft bodies. Yet they only take the soft, more or less 
 damp flour from germinating seeds, or from those the ger- 
 mination of which has been delayed, and which have again 
 been dried, while they leave the hard dry flour from ordinary 
 unsoftened grain. Moggridge substantiated this interesting 
 fact by his attempts at artificial feeding. They only made 
 an exception in favor of the fatty, oily remains of hemp 
 .seeds ; these were gnawed on all sides, without being 
 softened in water, while under ordinary circumstances the 
 hard husks of the hemp seeds and of most, other grains made 
 this impossible. But if the husks burst owing to germi- 
 nation, the ants could then eat the softened and changed 
 contents. In any case the peculiar parts of the ant's mouth 
 are only fitted, as mentioned before, for taking liquid or 
 soft substances ; but they can very well scrape or scratch 
 little bits of flour off seeds with their hard toothed man- 
 dibles. 
 
 Moggridge has also demonstrated that ants are subject to 
 rror and deception in spite of the instinct bestowed upon 
 them by their creator, which was always to lead them aright, 
 both in the choice of their nourishment and in so many 
 matters of some of which mention has been made. It has 
 already been said that they took china beads for grain. 
 But less pardonable than this is it, that they took into their 
 nests the little egg-like gall-apples of a small Cynips species 
 (Gall wasp), which much resemble the seeds of the Fitmaria 
 capreolata (Fumitory) and put them in their granaries, 
 clearly under the delusion that they were seeds. They are 
 also apt to fall into error with respect to the weather, and 
 it is quite untrue that they can foretell it, as Ebrard main- 
 tains. They turn back home and close the outlets when it 
 rains, but that is all. Forel has often seen the F. rufescens 
 and the F. sanguined overtaken by heavy rain when out on 
 a slave hunt, while he has observed others which were just 
 setting out turn back if the sky was cloudy, and come 
 out again if the sun won the day. They were not able to
 
 AXTS AND ANT LIFE. Ill 
 
 foresee that, in spite of the dark clouds, it would not rain ! 
 An army of Amazons was overtaken by a storm accom- 
 panied by sudden and heavy rain when thirty yards from 
 their nest. They turned back without attaining their 
 object, and arrived at their nest in great disorder when the 
 chief mischief was done. On the other hand an expedition of 
 the sanguine ants was, under similar circumstances, continued. 
 Sudden storms surprise the ants, but those which approach 
 slowly are discovered and avoided. The way in which an 
 ant train returning from a plundering expedition, laden with 
 stolen goods, may blunder as to its road back will be told 
 later. 
 
 If the harvesting and storing of grain be the fashion 
 among many species of ants in Southern Europe, this is 
 naturally even more the case in hot or tropical lands. The 
 activity of the Brazilian Sa-uba ants in this direction has 
 already been spoken of. But in addition to these there are 
 a good many other tropical and harvesting species, the num- 
 ber of which already discovered in the whole world Mogg- 
 ridge puts at nineteen. Dr. Delacour (" Rev. Zool.," May, 
 1848, 1849,) describes a giant ant of New Grenada, named 
 Arieros by the natives, which emptied for him a whole sack 
 of wheat during a single night. Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes 
 speaks as follows of the Indian JEcodoma, or Atta providens, 
 which does much harm in gardens and fields by its thefts of 
 seeds ("Descr. of New Indian Ants" in "Trans, of the Ent. 
 Soc.," 1836, p. 103): "In my morning walk I observed 
 more than a score of little heaps of grass-seeds (Panicum) in 
 several places on uncultivated land near the parade-ground; 
 each heap contained about a handful. On examination I 
 found they were raised by the above species of ant, hundreds 
 of which were employed in bringing up the seeds to the sur- 
 face from a store below ; the grain had probably got wet at 
 the setting-in of the monsoon, and the ants had taken 
 advantage of the first sunny day to bring it up to dry. . . . 
 Each ant was charged with a single seed ; but as it was too 
 weighty for many of them, and as the strongest had some 
 difficulty in scaling the perpendicular sides of the cylindrical 
 hole leading to the nest below, many were the falls of the 
 weaker ants with their burdens from near the summit to the 
 bottom. I observed they never relaxed their hold, and 
 with a perseverance affording a useful lesson to humanity,
 
 112 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 steadily recommenced the ascent after each successive- 
 tumble, nor halted in their labor until they had crowned the 
 summit, and lodged their burden on the common heap.'* 
 Similar proceedings were often observed by Dr. Jerdon, 
 ("Madras Journ. Lit. and Sc.," 1851, p. 46,) who had 
 several packets of seeds he kept in his room emptied by 
 these ants before he was aware of it. On the 7th November, 
 1866, Mr. Home observed an Indian ant (Psendomyrma 
 rufo-nigra, Jerdon,) with the same habits near Mainpuri 
 (" Hardwicke's Science Gossip," No. 81), p. 10!)). A long 
 column of grain-carrying ants betrayed to him the way to a 
 subterranean nest with five or six entrances, which he found 
 in the middle of a floor of earth, aboxit eighteen inches in 
 diameter, firm, smooth, and kept perfectly clean. From 
 this floor not less than thirteen roads led in all directions, 
 which were perfectly smooth and clean, going over all the 
 unevennesses of the ground, and these could be followed for 
 from thirty to forty yards, until they were lost in the grass. 
 Near the entrances were large rubbish heaps, placed care- 
 fully on one side, which consisted chiefly of the husks of the 
 gathered corn. 
 
 In times of scarcity, observers say, that not only are the 
 nests of these ants plundered, but the rubbish heaps are also 
 seized, and are used a? food in common with other grains. 
 The time of year at which Home made his observations 
 was the beginning of the cold weather in November, i,e., the 
 beginning of the time of privation. Dr. Buchanan White 
 sends from Capri ("Trans, of the Ent. Soc.," 1872, part 1,) 
 under the 3rd of June, 1866, almost the same observation. 
 " The perseverance with which a single ant would try and 
 draw a pod four times his own length was very interesting ; 
 sometimes three or four ants would unite in carrying one 
 burden. Near the formicarium was a great mass of debris, 
 consisting of empty pods, twigs, emptied snail-shells, etc., 
 cast out by the ants. The seeds appeared to be stored 
 inside the nest, as in one that I opened the other day I 
 found a large collection." 
 
 That harvesting-ants were to be found in Palestine is 
 proved by the texts from old Jewish writings given in chap. v k 
 Mr. F. Smith has lately confirmed the presence there of 
 Atta barbara, and Mr. Moggridge has received accounts, 
 thence, which leave no doubt remaining, that the granaries.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 113 
 
 of these ants in that country stretch over as wide an area 
 as the largest of those observed by himself in Mentone. 
 
 But by far the most remarkable of these ants is found 
 in Mexico. This is the My r mica or Atta malefaciens sen 
 barbata, or agricultural ant ; it is a large brown ant which 
 incredible as it may sound not only gathers corn, but 
 also plants it and reaps it when ripe, so that practises a 
 regular and complete system of agriculture, whereby, like a 
 prudent husbandman, it makes suitable and appropriate 
 arrangements for the different seasons of the year. Dr. 
 Linecum and his daughters, without other help, watched 
 this remarkable creature during ten years in the neighbor- 
 hood of their home in Texas : and the famous Charles 
 Darwin laid the observations made before the Linnasan 
 Society in London. (See " Journ. of the Proceedings of the 
 Linnsean Soc. of London," 1861, vol. vi., p. 29. Compare 
 Buckley, " Proceedings of the Academy of Nat. Sc. of 
 Philadelphia," 1860, p. 44) : " The species which I have 
 named ' Agricultural ' is a large brownish ant. It lives in 
 what may be termed paved cities, and like a thrifty, diligent, 
 provident farmer, makes suitable and timely arrangements 
 for the changing seasons. It is, in short, endowed with 
 skill, ingenuity, and untiring patience, sufficient to enable 
 it successfully to contend with the varying exigencies which 
 it may have to encounter in the life-conflict. When it has 
 selected a situation for its habitation, if on ordinary ground, 
 it bores a hole, around which it raises the surface three and 
 sometimes six inches, forming a low, circular mound, having 
 a very gentle inclination from the centre to the outer border, 
 which on an average is three or four feet from the entrance. 
 But if the location is chosen on low, flat, wet land, liable 
 to inundation, though the ground may be perfectly dry at 
 the time the ant sets to work, it nevertheless elevates the 
 mound, in the form of a pretty sharp cone, to the height of 
 fifteen or twenty inches or more, and makes the entrance 
 near the summit. Around the mound in either case the 
 ant clears the ground of all obstructions, levels and smooths 
 the surface to the distance of three or four feet from the 
 gate of the city, giving the space the appearance of a 
 handsome pavement, as it really is. Within this paved area 
 not a blade of any green thing is allowed to grow, except a 
 single species of grain-bearing grass. Having planted this
 
 114 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 crop in a circle around, and two or three feet from the 
 centre of the mound, the insect tends and cultivates it 
 with constant care, cutting away all other grasses and weeds 
 that may spring up amongst it and all around outside of the 
 farm-circle to the extent of one or two feet more. The 
 cultivated grass grows luxuriantly, and produces a heavy 
 crop of small, white, flinty seeds, which under the micro- 
 scope very closely resemble ordinary rice. When ripe, it 
 is carefully harvested, and carried by the workers, chaff and; 
 all, into the granary cells, where it is divested of the chaff, 
 and packed away. The chaff is taken out and thrown 
 beyond the limits of the paved area. During protracted) 
 wet weather, it sometimes happens that the provision stores 
 become damp, and are liable to sprout and spoil. In this 
 case, on the first fine day the ants bring out the damp and 
 damaged grain, and expose it to the sun till it is dry, when 
 they carry it back and pack away all the sound seeds, 
 leaving those that had sprouted to waste. 
 
 " In a peach orchard not far from my house is a consider- 
 able elevation, on which is an extensive bed of rock. la 
 the sand-beds overlying portions of this rock are fine castles 
 of the Agricultural Ants, evidently very ancient. My 
 observations on their manners and customs have been 
 limited to the last twelve years, during which time the 
 enclosure surrounding the orchard has prevented the 
 approach of cattle to the ant-farms. The cities which are 
 outside of the enclosure as well as those protected in it are, 
 at the proper season, invariably planted with the ant-rice. 
 The crop may accordingly always be seen springing up 
 within the circle about the first of November every year. 
 Of late years, however, since the number of farms and 
 cattle has greatly increased, and the latter are eating off the 
 grass much closer than formerly, thus preventing the 
 ripening of the seeds, I notice that the ' Agricultural Ant ' 
 is placing its cities along the turn-rows in the fields, walks 
 in gardens, inside about the gates, etc., where ( they can 
 cultivate their farms without molestation from the cattle. 
 
 "There can be no doubt of the fact, that the particular 
 species of grain-bearing grass mentioned above is inten- 
 tionally planted. In farmer-like manner the ground upon, 
 which it stands is carfully divested of all other grasses and 
 weeds during the time it is growing. When it is ripe the 

 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 115 
 
 grain is taken care of, the dry stubble cut away and carried 
 off, the paved area being left unencumbered until the 
 ensuing autumn, when the same ' ant rice ' reappears within 
 the same circle, and receives the same agricultural attention 
 as was bestowed upon the previous crop, and so on year 
 after year, as I know to be the case, in all situations where 
 the ants' settlements are protected from graminivorous 
 animals." 
 
 Buckley also mentions that Dr. Linecum's daughter went 
 daily into the garden to see the ants carry out their corn- 
 stores, which often amounted to more than half a bushel.
 
 116 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CATTLE AND MILKING. 
 
 THUS has this little but wonderful creature, suiting 
 itself to its life-conditions, reached a stage of culture 
 to which man only attained after passing through 
 two preceding long stages of hunting and shepherd life. 
 But as though this were not enough, ants also exercise the 
 usually accompanying duties of husbandry, care of cattle 
 and milking, in a way that does as much credit to their taste 
 as to their acuteness. They have as milch-cows if not 
 only, yet in preference to all other animals the .countless 
 and easily obtained Aphides, which yield from their thick 
 abdomens a sweet juice much liked by ants.* The ants are 
 not alone in this kind of gluttony. Flies, wasps, bees, etc., 
 are fond of this sweet liquid, and try to obtain it. Especially 
 in autumn there is opportunity of seeing willow-trees quite 
 covered with Aphides, accompanied by sucking ante and 
 other insects. But none of these insects know how to 
 manage the Aphides better than do the ants, which stroke 
 their abdomens with their antennas until they yield a drop 
 of their sweet juice. This must be done in a soft and 
 caressing manner peculiarly pleasant to the Aphides, for 
 Darwin tried in vain to imitate the ants and to persuade 
 them to yield their sweet excretion by stroking their 
 abdomens with a fine hair. " I removed all the ants," says 
 Darwin (" Origin of Species," ed. 1860, p. 210) "from a 
 group of about a dozen Aphides on a dock plant, and pre- 
 vented their attendance during several hours. After this 
 interval, I felt sure that the Aphides would want to excrete. 
 I watched them for some time through a lens, but not one 
 excreted ; I then tickled and stroked them with a hair in 
 
 * [The Aphides yield a liquidresemhling honey both from the opening 
 of the alimentary canal and from two setiform tubes. TK.]
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 117 
 
 the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with 
 their antennae ; but not one excreted. Afterwards I allowed 
 an ant to visit them, and it immediately seemed, by its eager 
 way of running about, to be well aware what a rich flock it 
 had discovered ; it then began to play with its antennae, on 
 the abdomen first of one aphis and then of another ; and 
 each aphis, as soon as -it felt the antennae, immediately 
 lifted up its abdomen and excreted a limpid drop of 
 sweet juice, which was eagerly devoured by the ant." The 
 behavior of ants towards Aphides has been known for a 
 considerable time. Linnaeus has called the Aphis the cow 
 of the ants (Aphis Formicarum vacca) although he did not 
 know that the ants took them within their dwellings, and 
 there kept them as regular milch-cows. Huber alludes 
 to this when he says : " An ant colony is the richer the 
 more Aphides it keeps. They are its cattle, its cows, its 
 goats. Who could have thought that the ants were a 
 shepherd-nation ! " The Lasius brunneus, or brown ant, 
 which seldom leaves its nest, lives almost wholly, according 
 to Forel, on the large bark lice, which it keeps and feeds in 
 its rooms and passages generally hollowed out in the bark 
 of trees. It manifests the greatest care for these animals, 
 carries them away when the nest is uncovered, or, if they 
 are too large to carry, leads them into the uninjured gal- 
 leries. These lice have a very long proboscis, which they 
 thrust deeply into the bark of the trees on the sap of 
 which they live. They can only withdraw it with difficulty, 
 and nothing is funnier to see than the indifference with 
 which the ants compel the poor things to loose their hold by 
 pulling and tearing at them, if the nest be opened or 
 endangered. Although the drawing out of the proboscis 
 can be managed if done slowly, yet there is danger of 
 breaking it. Lasius flavus, the yellow ant, also lives 
 entirely on the juice of the leaf, or rather root lice, 
 which it keeps in the tree roots surrounding its nest. 
 If its nest is uncovered, it carries away its beloved milch- 
 cows with just the same care as it does its own larvae 
 as Forel has often had an opportunity of observing. 
 Many species, as already mentioned, build roofs and 
 galleries of earth for them on plants and trees, so as to 
 protect them from outside injury. Others collect the eggs 
 of the Aphides in autumn, and thus bring them up and keep
 
 118 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 them in the interior of their own nests : but their love for 
 their foster children does not prevent them from eating 
 them up, skin and all, in times of need, when food is scarce. 
 " They take as much care of these eggs," says Schmarda 
 (" Intellectual Life of Animals," 1846), " as they do of 
 their own." According to the same writer, they look so 
 carefully after the safety of the Aphides that they make a 
 kind of embankment of earth as a protection for the plants 
 (especially spurge) on which they live. One day Huber 
 found round the stem of a spurge a small dome or heap 
 of earth, the smooth-walled interior of which gave shelter 
 to a family of Aphides, which the ants would here milk 
 undisturbed, protected from sun, rain, and strangers. The 
 ants came and went to and fro from the neighboring ant- 
 hills through a very small hole made in the lower part of 
 the dome. Huber found a similar " stall " on a little poplar 
 twig five feet from the ground. The leaf -scales of the 
 common plantain, beneath which the Aphides living on this 
 plant withdraw in August, when bloom and stalk are dried 
 up, are walled up and covered in the ground With damp 
 earth, so that plenty of room is left within which the milking 
 can go on unhindered. 
 
 By their caresses and coaxings the ants are able to obtain 
 from the Aphides a larger amount of their sweet juice than 
 is otherwise habitually excreted. This is also the reason 
 why trees and plants suffer which are much visited by ants. 
 But the ants are not,as is generally thought, the direct, but the 
 indirect, cause of the mischief, for first they largely increase 
 the number of the Aphides by their care and tendance, and 
 secondly, as the Aphides yield more to the ants, they must 
 take more from the plant. If there be no ants present, 
 they will of course do the same, but in smaller measure. 
 They then throw their excrement out by a kind of jerk of 
 the abdomen. But if ants are present they wait patiently 
 till they come and relieve them of their burden. The drops 
 are then Seen to follow each other quickly, while otherwise 
 the Aphides can remain quiet for a long time, excreting 
 nothing. The ant takes as much juice as possible into the 
 stomach, and can, as before mentioned, regurgitate the 
 superfluity later for its comrades and larvae. 
 
 The gall insects, parasitic on plants and trees, such as 
 Kermes and Coccus, and especially the cochineal insect
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 119 
 
 receive just the same attention from ants ; and they, with 
 the other plant lice, yield the ants, in our countries, the 
 largest part of their food, although there is herein the 
 greatest diversity between the different species, and although, 
 as has been already said, the harvesting ants quite scorn the 
 Aphides. Some species (Ltptothorax, ColobopsisJ feed directly 
 on the juices of trees and plants ; some are carnivorous, as 
 Pheidole, Tapinoma, Tetramoriwn, and others, and prefer 
 putrefying bodies, dead insects, and similar comestibles to 
 sweet things. The gall insects are also kept by ants as 
 milch cows within their nests, and Me Cook found Cocci 
 as well as Aphides in the nests he examined ; they were, 
 however, kept in special, or separate rooms. The same 
 observer saw the caterpillars of butterflies belonging to the 
 genus Lycoena used as milch cows by a species of black ant 
 (.F. subsericeci), since these caterpillars yield a kind of sweet 
 liquid from minute glands in the abdomen. 
 
 If ants are seen running up and down the branches of a 
 tree in great numbers, it is almost always only because 
 Aphides are to be found on the tree. They visit fruit trees, 
 for instance, only for the sake of the Aphides and gall- 
 insects, and do not touch uninjured fruit. Many attempts 
 have been made to destroy or hinder the clever little 
 creatures in this proceeding, partly to test their intelligence, 
 and partly to protect the trees from the injury inflicted on 
 them. How difficult it is to do this will be seen immediately. 
 They are indeed very easily frightened or startled away by 
 anything strange and unaccustomed, but this only lasts 
 until they have either recognised its harmlessness or learnt 
 how to overcome the obstacle. For instance, if a ring of 
 chalk be made round the trunk of a tree visited by ants, 
 those which first come to it are startled and do not venture 
 to cross the ring. But after a few of the braver have 
 looked carefully into the matter, and have found that there 
 is nothing to harm them, the rest follow them over the line. 
 Professor Leuckart put a more difficult, and apparently an 
 insuperable, obstacle in their way by spreading round the 
 tree-trunk a broad band soaked in tobacco-water. When 
 the ants coming from above arrived at the spot whereat this 
 obstacle awaited them, they turned back and let themselves 
 drop from the twigs of the tree and so arrived on the ground. 
 But it was not to be so easily managed by the ants coming 
 
 i 2
 
 120 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 up from below. They convinced themselves that they could 
 not cross the band without peril of life, and turned back. 
 But Leuckart soon saw them coming back again, each 
 carrying in its jaws a pellet of earth. This earth was 
 placed on the tobacco-soaked barrier, and this was continued 
 until a practicable road was made, on which the little 
 creatures then ran backwards and forwards ! 
 
 An exactly similar incident was observed by the famous 
 Cardinal Fleury (1653-1743), a great admirer of ants, 
 according to the information published by the distinguished 
 French naturalist, Reaumur, in a fragment treating on ants, 
 in his "Natural History of Insects" (1734-42). The 
 Cardinal told Reaumur that he had smeared the trunk of a 
 tree with a ring of birdlime to keep back the ants, and that 
 the ants had surmounted the difficulty by bringing up little 
 pellets of earth, small stones, etc. The same observer saw 
 a number of ants bring little pieces of wood and make there- 
 with a bridge, in order to cross an obstacle put in their way, 
 a vessel of water surrounding the bottom of an orange 
 tub. 
 
 The ants behaved in yet more ingenious fashion under the 
 following very similar circumstances ; Herr G. Theuerkauf , 
 the painter (Wasserthorstr. 49, Berlin), writes to the author, 
 November 18, 1875: "A maple tree standing on the 
 ground of the manufacturer, Vollbaum, of Elbing (now of 
 Dantzic) swarmed with Aphides and ants. In order to 
 check the mischief, the proprietor smeared about a foot- 
 width of the ground round the tree with tar. The first ants 
 who wanted to cross naturally stuck fast. But what did 
 the next ? They turned back to the tree and carried down 
 Aphides which they stuck down on the tar one after another 
 until they had made a bridge over which they could cross 
 the tar-ring without danger. The above named merchant, 
 Vollbaum, is the guarantor of this story, which I received 
 from his own mouth on the very spot whereat it occurred." 
 
 Apart from the very ingenious surmounting of the ob- 
 stacle, what becomes of that innate affection and love for 
 Aphides, which the instinct-philosophers are obliged to 
 ascribe to ants, since, without thought or sympathy for 
 their beloved fosterchildren, they sacrificed them to a dread- 
 ful death, when a higher object seemed at stake ! 
 
 For a scarcely less interesting observation than the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 121 
 
 above on the relations between ants and Aphides, and the 
 thereby developed intelligence of the former, the author is 
 debtor to Herr Nottebohm, inspector of buildings, at 
 Karlsruhe, who related the following on May 24th, 1876, 
 under the title, " Ants as founders of Aphides' colonies : " 
 " Of two equally strong young weeping-ashes, which 
 I planted in rny garden- at Kattowitz, in Upper Silesia, one 
 succeeded well, and in about five or six years showed full 
 foliage, while the other regularly every year was covered, 
 when it began to bud, with millions of Aphides, which 
 destroyed the young leaves and sprouts, and thus completely 
 delayed the development of the tree. As I perceived that 
 the only reason for this was the action of the Aphides, I 
 determined to destroy them utterly. So in the March of the 
 following year 1 took the trouble to clean aud wash every 
 bough, sprig, and bud before the bursting of the latter, with 
 the greatest care by means of a syringe. The result was 
 that the tree developed perfectly healthy and vigorous 
 leaves and young shoots, and remained quite free from the 
 Aphides until the end of May or the beginning of June. 
 My joy was of short duration. One fine sunny morning 
 I saw a surprising number of ants running quickly up and 
 down the trunk of the tree ; this aroused my attention, and 
 led me to look more closely. To my great astonishment I 
 then saw that many troops of ants were busied in carrying 
 single Aphides up the stem to the top, and that in this 
 way many of the lower leaves had been planted with 
 colonies of Aphides. After some weeks the evil was as 
 great as ever. The tree stood alone on the grass plot, and 
 offered the only situation for an Aphides' colony for the 
 countless ants there present. I had destroyed this colony ; 
 but the ants replanted it, by bringing new colonists from 
 distant branches and setting them on the young leaves." 
 
 Where nature, therefore, does not voluntarily provide for 
 the coveted presence of their beloved milch-cows, the ants 
 know how to take the trouble on their own shoulders in a 
 suitable place. Sometimes they attain their object in a 
 shorter but more perilous way, by simply fighting with their 
 relations or rivals for possession of the Aphides, just as we 
 have seen similar conduct among harvesting ants, and shall 
 see yet more among other genera. Forel saw a colony of 
 Formica exsecta, which he brought with him from Mont
 
 122 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 Tendre and established on the edge of a little wood near 
 Vaux, at oace attack without fear two nests of Lasius niger 
 and Lasius flavus. After they had slain many of their 
 enemies, they rushed upon the shrubs growing around, and 
 chased off the ants which were on them in order to seize 
 their Aphides. They tried to do the same with an oak 
 occupied by Camponotus ligniperdus, whereon these large, 
 strong, and warlike ants kept their Aphides. They made 
 unheard-of efforts to obtain their object, but failed. They 
 were flung back by their terrible foe and killed by hundreds, 
 and at last gave up the enterprise. They indemnified 
 themselves therefor by seizing a number of grasshoppers' 
 holes, and chasing away the inhabitants. As Forel remarks, 
 this is a habitual method of obtaining for themselves a tem- 
 porary dwelling adopted by almost all kinds of ants. Three 
 or four of them push into a grasshopper's hole ; it comes 
 out, and tries to drive away its foes by biting and seizing 
 them. But the ants fling themselves upon it, hold down 
 its legs and sprinkle it with their poison. The grasshopper 
 yields, leaves its nest, and is fortunate if it escapes with life. 
 Its dwelling is then taken possession of by the ants. Ants 
 fight over sugar thrown in their way, just as they do over 
 Aphides. Forel one day threw a piece of sugar between 
 two columns of the Lasius emarginatus and the Tetramorium 
 ccespitum (turf -ant) which had been fighting, but were then 
 retreating on account of the sun. The battle broke out 
 anew, and that most vigorously. The emarginati were 
 beaten and pursued to their nest, while the victors seized 
 the sugar. In South America there is an ant, Myrmica or 
 Atta saccharum, which lives only on sugar, or rather on the 
 juice of the sugar-cane, and commits terrible depredations 
 in sugar plantations by burrowing under the roots. It is 
 thence called the sugar-ant. 
 
 McCook (foe. ctV., p. 275) gives a very remarkable observa- 
 tion as to the milking of Aphides made on the American 
 mound-building ant (F. exsectoides), whose large buildings 
 have already been described after he had very accurately 
 described the process of milking. He noticed that of the 
 workers returning to the nest from the tree on which the 
 milking was going on, a far smaller number had distended 
 abdomens than among those descending the tree itself. A 
 closer investigation showed that at the roots of the trees, at
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 123 
 
 the outlets of the subterranean galleries, a number of ants 
 were assembled, which were fed by the returning ants after 
 the fashion already described in feeding the larvae, and 
 which were distinguished by the observer as " pensioners." 
 McCook often observed the same fact later, among, with 
 others, the already described Pennsylvanian wood-ant. Dis- 
 tinguished individuals in the body-guard of the queen were 
 fed in like fashion. McCook is inclined to think that the 
 reason of this proceeding is to be found in the " division of 
 labor" so general in the Ant Republic, and that the 
 members of the community which are employed in building 
 and working within the nest, leave to the others the care 
 of providing food for themselves as well as for the younger 
 and helpless members ; they thus have a claim to receive 
 from time to time a reciprocal toll of gratitude, and take 
 it, as is shown very clearly, in a way demanded by the 
 welfare of the community. 
 
 The plant-lice and gall-insects are not, as said above, the 
 only milch-cows of the ants. There is a large number 
 found in the nests with the other frequently seen insects, 
 which are all comprised under the name of Myrmecophila, 
 or ant-friends, and which differ very much according to 
 varying circumstances, in different species and in different 
 lands. All myrmecophilous insects are alike in this, that 
 they secrete a sweet juice which the ants can feed upon. 
 In order to obtain this object the ants spare no time and no 
 trouble, and they treat their sweet friends with a love, a 
 thoughtf ulness and a care which would be worthy surprise 
 as an image of friendship, were it not for the strong egoistical 
 interest mixed therewith. Most of the Myrmecophila are 
 blind, becaiise living in the perpetual darkness of the nest 
 they have no need of eyes, or rather because their visual 
 organs have gradually become rudimentary by continued 
 disuse. They are therefore, being unable to seek food for 
 themselves, entirely dependent on their lords and protectors 
 the ants, just in the same way as, and still more than, 
 domestic animals, such as the dog, are dependent upon man. 
 Unfortunately most of the Myrmecophila called also ant 
 parasites, and reckoned by Lespes as containing three 
 hundred different species are still very little known. Espe- 
 cially remarkable, according to Lespes, is the behavior of 
 ants towards a kind of blind beetle, the Claviger beetle, which
 
 124 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 has large antennas in lieu of eyes, and only rudimentary 
 wings. Its movements are very slow, and the parts of its 
 mouth are only suitable for fluid food. It cannot feed 
 itself, but is fed and nourished by the ants just in, 
 the same way as they feed each other, from mouth to 
 mouth. In return the beetle yields each time a very 
 pleasant-flavored juice : the ants lick this up, pressing the 
 juice-yielding part with their jaws in every possible, but 
 non-injurious fashion. As soon as an ant has given 
 a Claviger anything to eat, or rather to drink, after a 
 previous communication with their feelers, it indemnifies 
 itself by sucking at its body. This whole proceeding is 
 clearly a sort of refined gluttony, for it would have no sense 
 merely as a matter of nourishment, as the ant must give 
 as much, or more, food material to the beetle than the 
 latter is able to return. And this is the more likely as the 
 ants are always regarded as gluttons. If, for instance, 
 honey is given to them, of which they are very fond, they 
 will leave everything in the lurch, even their larvae, in order 
 to swallow as much as possible, while they will not do this 
 with other things they like less, as the juices of insects. 
 
 The Claviger species always stay in the nest. A seeing Sta- 
 phylinus, a large species of beetle (Lomechusa ; Atemdes) which 
 has been observed by Lespes, leads a very changeful life. 
 It has fully developed wings and flies about outside the 
 nest during the greater part of the day. But it is unable to 
 procure its own food, and when pressed by hunger returns 
 to the nest to be fed by the ants. Lespes has seen one 
 of these approach an ant, and communicate its want 
 by touching it with its feelers. When the meal was 
 over, the well-bred Staphylinus offered its abdomen to its 
 feeder, so as to discharge its debt of obligation. These 
 beetles behave just like naughty boys, who are always 
 playing about outside, and only come home when meal-time 
 is near. Their outer appearance in no fashion betrays that 
 they are so clumsy and helpless as not even to be able to 
 find their own food. 
 
 E. Schroder (" Zoolog. Gardens," 1867, p. 227) saw a 
 specimen of the Lomechusa strumosa fed and milked by red- 
 brown ants, the body of the beetle manifesting a quivering 
 movement of delight so long as the stroking lasted. Another 
 species of Staphylinus (Mynnedonid) is an enemy of the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 125 
 
 ants, but only ventures into their nests dui-ing the winter* 
 when they are half frozen. In summer it would soon be 
 torn to pieces. As a rule, it lies in wait near the roads 
 frequented by ants and seizes solitary passers-by, tearing 
 open and devouring the abdomen filled with sweet juice. 
 Forel regards all Myrmecophila of which Taschenberg 
 reckons three hundred species in Germany alone as direct or 
 indirect parasites, and as only accidental parts of the economy 
 of the ant polity. He has found a large number of them, espe- 
 cially of species of beetles, in the ants' nests, but could not 
 establish their exact relations with the ants. That these beetles 
 are not always friends of the ants is proved by the following. 
 Forel saw a tolerably large beetle (Hister quadrimaculatus 
 JL.) appear in the midst of a number of F.pratensis, returning 
 from a battle with the red ants, and plunge his head into, 
 a pupa. The ants rushed furiously upon him, covered him 
 with bites and poison, and tried to tear away his prey. But 
 the hard outer case of the beetle made all their efforts 
 useless, and the beetle appeared to be perfectly conscious of 
 this and to be sure of his work, so did not let himself be 
 terrified. He kept his head and forefeet firmly fixed to the 
 pupa, and used his remaining four legs for retreat, and so 
 came off uninjured with his prey. Another species of Hister, 
 which tried a similar attack on P. ccespitium (turf ants), was 
 seen by Forel to expire under their stings. 
 
 In addition to the beetles, Forel found in considerable 
 numbers in the ants' nests a large, long, white, ringed larva, 
 which was fed and tended by the ants like their own larvae,, 
 and which he regards as the larva of an \mknowu beetle, 
 which becomes a pupa and emerges elsewhere. Perhaps the- 
 ants confound this larva with their own, but some deeper 
 fact may lie in it. 
 
 Moggridge very often found in the nests of the harvesting 
 ants together with little white spring tails, or Poduri, the 
 " silver fish " (Lepisma), and a small species of wood louse 
 (Coluocera attce) the larvae of an elater-beetle, of which the 
 ants appear to take great care. Moggridge thinks that this 
 care is quite selfish, and that it is shown in order to make 
 use of the tunnels of the larvae. A little cricket (Grillus 
 mynnecophilous) is also found in some ants' nests in Italy 
 and France. 
 
 Still less is known of the Myrmecophila of non-European
 
 126 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 lands than of European, although they are not less numerous. 
 Bates found a peculiar species of snake (Amphisbasna) in the 
 nests of the Sa-uba ants. Julius Frobel saw in Mexico an ant- 
 colony changing its dwelling. In the procession marched 
 some little beetles, resembling our Coccionella semipunctata. 
 If one of these tries to get out of the line of march it is 
 quickly brought back by the ants at its side (" From 
 America," Leipzig, 1875, I. 275). "In Brazil the place of 
 the Aphides is taken by the larvae and nymphae of certain 
 crickets, namely, of Cercopis and Membracis, which sit on the 
 plant-stalks sucking at the sap, and from time to time 
 excrete from the abdomen a drop of sweet juice which is 
 eagerly licked up by an ant (F. attelaboides), which caresses 
 the cricket and helps it in changing its skin, just as our ants 
 do with the Aphides. When Aphides, which had not pre- 
 viously been there, were introduced into the gardens of Rio 
 Janeiro, the ants soon recognised their useful properties " 
 (Perty, on "The Intellectual Life of Animals," 2nd ed., 
 p. 315). " According to Audubon certain leaf bugs are 
 used as slaves by the ants in the Brazilian forests. When 
 these ants want to bring home the leaves which they have 
 bitten off the trees, they do it by means of a column of these 
 bugs, which go in pairs, kept in order on either side by 
 accompanying ants. They compel stragglers to re-enter the 
 ranks, and laggards to keep up by biting them. After the 
 work is done the bugs are shut up within the colony and 
 scantily fed " (Perty, pp. 329 and 330). 
 
 A species of ant which lives in the same country as the 
 remarkable agricultural species, has earned farthest the art 
 of cattle-keeping and milking. It is the Myrmecocystus 
 mexicanus, discovered thirty years ago by a Belgian 
 naturalist, Wesmael. Among these certain neuter ants, 
 which must belong to a special caste, take the place of the 
 Aphides and Myrmecophila, and so fill their very dilatable 
 iibdomens with honey that they look like little round bottles, 
 : and can be brought to market as an article of commerce. 
 
 " These ants," says Blanchard, " which are very numerous 
 round the town of Dolores and are known in the country 
 under the name of Basileras, live in subterranean dwellings, 
 which do not betray their presence outside. In the earlier 
 part of their life they have an abdomen of the usual size. 
 But it gradually enlarges enormously, owing to the collection
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 127 
 
 of a syruplike liquid therein, until it resembles a transparent 
 flask. lu this condition these so-called honey-ants are 
 unable to move, and hang motionless from the roofs of their 
 dwelling. The women and children of the neighborhood 
 dig" up the nests and suck the Basileras. If they are 
 brought to table, the head and thorax are pulled off, and 
 the little honey-filled bladder laid on a plate." 
 
 These honey- ants are fed in a special way by their neuter 
 sisters, and are then milked. They never leave the nest, 
 and are therefore in the full sense of the word, like 
 the Clavigers, " stall-cows." Here also the gluttony of 
 the ants and their excessive fondness for honeylike sweets 
 apparently play the chief part. 
 
 According to Dr. C. Cruger (" Journal of the Union of 
 Naturalists," Hamburg, II. vol., 1876) the whole commu- 
 nity appears to be made up of three kinds of animals, perhaps 
 of different species, one consisting of the feeders and guar- 
 dians of the honey- preparing caste which never leave the 
 nest, and which bring them pollen and petals with nectaries, 
 while a third large and strong kind with very powerful jaws 
 act as soldiers, and have the duty of guarding the home. 
 They place themselves in a double row in front of the nest, 
 patrol in all directions, and only step out of their ranks to 
 kill an approaching enemy or stranger. There are thus 
 carters, merchants, and soldiers.
 
 128 ANTS AND ANT LIFK. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE. 
 
 love for honey makes ants very dangerous enemies 
 JL of beehives, into which they often win their way in the 
 most cunning and subtle fashion. Karl Vogt relates in his 
 "Animal Societies" a story, since become very well-known, of 
 the apiary of a friend which was invaded by ants. To make 
 this impossible for the future, the four legs of the beehive- 
 stand were put into small, shallow bowls, filled with water, 
 as is often done with food in ant-infested places. The ants 
 soon found a way out of this, or rather a way ^nto their 
 beloved honey, and that over an iron staple with which the 
 stand was attached to a neighboring wall. The staple was 
 removed, but the ants did not allow themselves to be 
 defeated. They climbed into some linden trees standing 
 near, the branches of which hung over the stand, and then 
 dropped upon it from the branches, doing just the same as 
 their comrades do with respect to food surrounded by water, 
 when they drop upon it from the ceiling of the room. In 
 order to make this impossible, the boughs were cut away. 
 But once more the ants were found in the stand, and closer 
 investigation showed that one of the bowls was dried up, 
 and that a crowd of ants had gathered in it. But they 
 found themselves puzzled how to go on with their robbery, 
 for the leg did not, by chance, rest on the bottom of the 
 bowl, but was about half an inch from it. The ants were 
 seen rapidly touching each other with their antennae, or 
 carrying on a consultation, until at last a rather larger ant 
 came forward, and put an .end to the difficulty. It rose to 
 its full height on its hind legs, and struggled until at last it 
 seized a rather projecting splinter of the wooden leg, and 
 managed to take hold of it. As soon as this was done other 
 ants ran on to it, strengthened the hold by clinging, and so 
 made a little living bridge, over which the others could
 
 AXTS AXD ANT LIFE. 129 
 
 easily pass. The great black ants of the East Indies were 
 seen by Sykes to act in a yet more ingenious way. " In 
 Sykes' house the dessert was placed on a table in a locked 
 verandah, and covered with a cloth, the legs being placed in 
 vessels of water. But the ants waded through, or, if the 
 water were too deep, clung to each other with their strong 
 legs, and so reached the. feet of the table and the Chinese 
 sweetmeats, and although hundreds were killed every day, 
 the next day saw new crowds. Sykes then surrounded the 
 legs of the table with a ring of turpentine, but after a few 
 days they were again among the sweet fruits. The edge of 
 the table stood about an inch from the wall. The large 
 ants clung to the wall with their hind legs and stretched the 
 fore legs across to the edge of the table, and so many 
 managed to cross. Sykes pulled the table further away 
 from the wall, but they then climbed up the wall to about a 
 foot above the table, gave a spring and fell on the fruits " 
 (Perty, p. 341). 
 
 The ants are as greedy about syrup and syrup-like fluids 
 as they are about sugar, honey, and sweet fruits. Their 
 cleverness in discovering these is so great, that as the 
 instinct-mongers say, their instinct " borders on human 
 reason ; " in reality it is reason, and often surpasses the human 
 acuteness which it is thus vainly sought to defend. When 
 an ant has found such a treasure, it first obeys the inflexible 
 law of egoism, and fills its own stomach as much as possible, 
 until it is quite swollen. It then remembers its duties to its 
 felloAvmen, or rather fellow-ants, and after it has left the 
 place, returns in a short time with a number of its comrades, 
 which now do the same. 
 
 Dr. Franklin (cited in " Bingley," iv., p. 176,) tells how, 
 in order to test the intelligence of the ants, he put a little 
 earthen pot filled with treacle into an out-of-the-way closet. 
 The ants soon appeared in crowds, and devoured the treacle. 
 He then drove them away, and hung the pot from the ceiling 
 by a string, so that, as he thought, no ant could reach it. 
 A single ant was accidentally left behind in the pot. It eat 
 as much treacle as it could, and then wanted to get away. 
 After long searching it found the string, and made its way 
 back along it. By way of the ceiling and down the wall it 
 again reached the ground. But it had hardly been away an 
 hour when a large swarm of ants arrived, climbed up the
 
 130 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 wall, ran along the ceiling to the string, which led them to. 
 the treacle-pot. They repeated this manoeuvre, relieving 
 each other in troops, until all the treacle had disappeared. 
 
 Such a proceeding, one among hundreds of similar obser- 
 vations, necessarily suggests two questions, the investigation 
 of which cannot be avoided in a psychological view of 
 animals : 
 
 First ; How do the ants find their way to a place very 
 distant from then* nest at which a source of nourishment has 
 been discovered, and which they are unable to see ? 
 
 Second; By what means do they communicate to each 
 other the discovery of such a treasure and induce their com- 
 rades to follow them to such a place ? 
 
 As to the first question, there can be no doubt that its 
 answer lies in the excessively fine scent of the ants, while 
 their sight appears to be rather weak. The first is so sensi- 
 tive, that the approach of a human hand to an ant road is 
 enough to startle the prudent little creatures. Lespes says 
 that if a hand is laid for a moment on an ant path while it is 
 clear and then taken away again, the first ant that comes 
 along starts back terrified as soon as it comes to the spot 
 touched, and generally runs away as fast as possible. A 
 second comes, and a third, and all act in the same way. At 
 last one appears which either has a less keen scent or is less 
 timid, and which passes the barrier. As soon as this has 
 been done without danger, all the rest follow. Forel made 
 just the same observation with Lasius emarginatus. If a 
 finger is put for a moment on its road when none is there, 
 the first ant that comes up stops suddenly, stretches its 
 feelers in the air and turns back. Soon others come up in 
 a clearly uneasy way, run up, search over the place, and do 
 not pass by the spot until they are convinced that there is no 
 danger. Forel says further that nothing is more necessary 
 in scientific ant observations than to keep the mouth and 
 nose covered with the hand, for that the lightest human 
 breath is sufficient to frighten the ants and to cause the 
 failure of the experiment. He kept an ant-colony (Strongy- 
 lognathus testaceus) with a jar of honey in a cage, or 
 vivarium, surrounded by a high and thick plaster wall. He 
 then ceased feeding another ant-colony (Camponotus hercu- 
 laneus) in the same room, so as to induce them to go out. 
 The Camponotus ran about everywhere, and by the help of 

 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 131 
 
 their scent soon discovered the honey, although they could 
 not see it, nor climb over the wall. They tunnelled through 
 the gypsum, which Forel vainly repaired, and stole the 
 honey until the wall was made so strong that they could not 
 get through it. Only a single ant got through, in what way 
 is unknown, and so crammed itself with honey that it could 
 not return. Forel found it the next morning leaning against 
 the inner side of the wall, and unable either to make a 
 tunnel through or to climb over. Thus we have an ant so 
 lacking in the " instinct " of feeding itself that it was unable 
 to conquer its greediness ! Jars containing jams or sweet- 
 meats, placed in water, are regularly blocked up with 
 swarms of ants, which have scented the sweetness and in 
 vain seek ways and means of penetrating to it. 
 
 As to the searching for or finding again a road once 
 passed over by them, this is all the easier to them, owing to 
 the fairly strong scent which they are known to leave 
 behind them. 
 
 In that which concerns the second part, the power of 
 communication, or language, the very sensitive antenna? play 
 the chief part, being well supplied with nerves. Two ants, 
 which are communicating with, or speaking to each other, 
 stand face to face, and mutually tap each other in the 
 most rapid manner with their peculiarly motile feelers, 
 striking each other's heads, and so on. That they are thus 
 able to impart quite detailed information, and as to distinct 
 things, is proved by countless examples, some of which have 
 already been mentioned. Jesse writes : " I have often put 
 a small green caterpillar near an ant's nest; you may see it 
 immediately seized by one of the ants, who after several 
 ineffectual efforts to drag it to its nest, will quit it, go up to 
 another ant, and they will appear to hold a conversation 
 together by means of their antennas, after which they will 
 return together to the caterpillar, and, by their united efforts, 
 drag it where they wish to deposit it. I have also frequently 
 observed two ants meeting on their path across a gravel- 
 walk, one going from and the other returning to the nest. 
 They will stop, touch each other's antennae, and appear to 
 hold a conversation ; and I could almost fancy that one was 
 communicating to the other the best place for foraging " 
 (" Gleanings," vol. 1. pp. 18, 19, ed. 1838). 
 
 In a letter to Charles Darwin, Hague (quoted by Landois,
 
 132 ANTS AXD ANT LIFE. 
 
 *' Animal Language," 1874, p. 129) relates that he one day 
 killed with his finger a number of ants which daily came out 
 of a hole to some flowers standing on a chimney-piece and 
 did not allow themselves to be disturbed by brushing their 
 path. The result of this was that all new coiners at once 
 turned back again and tried to persuade those of their com- 
 panions not yet conscious of the danger to do the same. 
 Those meeting each other held a short conversation, the 
 result of which was not an immediate return, the arriving 
 ants seeking a proof for themselves. When the war-making 
 ants are going to take the field, they hold council in the same 
 way, as will later be more fully explained, and talk, over the 
 resolution arrived at. When a hungry ant wants food, it 
 communicates with its comrades by movements of its feelers. 
 The helpless larvae are in the same manner bidden to open 
 their mouths for food. Mutual likes and dislikes are also 
 signified by means of this gesture-language. Landois is 
 further of opinion that, judging by his own observations, 
 ants must have not only a gesture- language but also a spoken 
 or voice language, even though it be not audible to human 
 ears, while Sir John Lubbock (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool. xiv., 
 p. 265 seq.) thinks himself obliged to deny this, following 
 his own investigations. For instance Landois threw a large 
 live cross-spider on a very populous ant-heap. In a trice the 
 whole colony was alarmed, and that with a celerity which 
 only seemed explicable to him by some kind of acoustic com- 
 munication. A large number of ants flung themselves on 
 the spider, and a tremendous struggle ensued which ended in 
 the complete defeat of the intruder. Landois also succeeded 
 in proving the existence of a sound apparatus, or strident 
 (rasping) organ in the abdomen of ants. According to 
 Ponera the strident noise can be heard by the human ear, 
 but not by the ants themselves. 
 
 Further, the language or the power of communication 
 must vary in richness and completeness in different species. 
 For it has already been mentioned, for example, that on 
 the occasion of a projected change of dwelling one ant will 
 take another between its jaws and carry it to the place 
 selected for the new abode, while others do not need so 
 practical a method of communication, but understand each 
 other by signs and gestures. The most frequent, or one of 
 the most frequent occasions for mutual communication and
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 133 
 
 gathering together may well be in the case of the discovery 
 of a food supply as in the incidents mentioned above. 
 Lubbock (loc. cit.) noticed how an ant, which had found such 
 a treasure, brought some of its friends, and how these 
 informed others, and so on ; but all kinds did not behave in 
 this fashion, and some (such as specimens of F. fused) only 
 sought the food for their own consumption all day long. 
 The latter the more resemble us men, who generally keep as 
 secret as possible discoveries of places of food supply ! The 
 same observer was able to place it beyond doubt, by many 
 ingenious experiments, that, as maintained above, their com- 
 munications are not only of a general kind, but can deal 
 with quite concrete things and directions ; for instance, that 
 a place with many larvse will, in pursuance of the invitation 
 of the ant-guide, be sought by a larger number of ants than 
 will one with few. Thus planned deceptions have been 
 shattered by the wisdom of these little creatures. The author 
 is indebted to the already mentioned and excellent letters of 
 Dr. Ellendorf , of Wiedenbruck, for many interesting obser- 
 vations on the power of communication among ants. Dr. 
 Ellendorf writes : 
 
 " I lived for a long time on the island of Omotepe in the 
 lake of Nicaragua and had there an opportunity of watching 
 these little creatures daily and hourly under compulsion, 
 for they were inmates of my house. I had scarcely built 
 my rancho when they were to be found therein, at first 
 singly, then more and more, busily hunting over every 
 corner. It was soon plain to me how fully they possessed 
 the power of communicating with each other. I had hung 
 the skin of a bird out to dry, and the next morning I only 
 found a little heap of feathers on the ground. About 180 
 yards off I found the nest of the ants which had destroyed 
 the skin, and which had clearly been summoned by a com- 
 rade which had discovered the skin and the way to it. In 
 order to watch this proceeding more closely I fastened near 
 my table a stick with a cross piece, and hung a dead bird 
 from it by a string. Before long I saw an ant run down the 
 string to the corpse. It walked deliberately over it, stood 
 still here and there, and carefully tried it all round with its 
 feelers. After thus busying itself for perhaps a minute, it 
 ran up the string again and down the stick to the floor. As 
 soon as it reached the ground it ran quickly about as though
 
 134 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 seeking someone. Suddenly it met a sister, and both stood 
 still. It touched the latter with its antenna?, and then ran in 
 the same way to a second and third and slipped out through 
 the bamboos, so that I could no longer follow it. It was not 
 long before an ant came down the string, then a second, a 
 third, and so on. In an hour and a-half the body was 
 thoroughly perforated by them, and in twenty-four hours 
 all the flesh had disappeared off the bones. The next day I 
 repeated the same mano3uvre, but laid a piece of sugar on the 
 ground near the stick, so as to see if the first who might 
 discover the dead body would tell his comrades which were 
 employed with the sugar. An ant soon ran down the string 
 to the bird. It tried it, and then ran back to the ground. 
 After running about for a moment, it mingled with the 
 rogues busy with the sugar. Here I of course lost sight of 
 it, but I noticed a great commotion in the crowd. About 
 half left the sugar, and in a short time the dead body was 
 again covered with ants. It was clear that the finder had 
 informed the others ! 
 
 " The next day I hung a dead body by a string t6 a cross- 
 beam of the rancho, so that it dangled freely in the air. 
 Until the evening not an ant was to be seen, but the body 
 was half-devoured by the next morning. So during the 
 night an ant out hunting bad discovered the body and had 
 communicated the fact to the others. 
 
 "It is a hard matter to protect any eatables from these 
 creatures, let the custody be ever so close. The legs of 
 cupboards and tables in or on which eatables are kept are 
 placed in vessels of water. I myself did this, but I none 
 the less found thousands of ants in the cupboard next 
 morning. It was a puzzle to me how they crossed the 
 water, but the puzzle was soon solved. For I found a straw 
 in one of the saucers, which lay obliquely across the edge 
 of the pan and touched the leg of the press : this they had 
 used for a bridge. Hundreds were drowned in the water, 
 apparently because disorder had reigned at first, those 
 coming down with booty meeting those going up. But now 
 there was perfect order ; the descending stream used one side 
 of the straw, the ascending the other. I now pushed the 
 straw about an inch away from the cupboard leg; a terrible 
 confusion arose. In a moment the leg immediately over the 
 water was covered with hundreds of ants, feeling for the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 135 
 
 bridge in every direction with their antennae, running back 
 again and coming in ever larger swarms, as though they 
 had communicated to their comrades within the cupboard 
 the fearful misfortune that had taken place. Meanwhile 
 the new comers continued to run along the straw, and not 
 finding the leg of the cupboard the greatest perplexity arose. 
 They hurried round the. edge of the pan, and soon found out 
 where the fault lay. With united forces they quickly 
 pulled and pushed at the straw, until it again came into 
 contact with the wood, and the communication was again 
 restored." 
 
 To this we may add a very interesting observation of the 
 Franciscan father, Vincent Gredler, of Botzen, recorded as 
 follows in " Zool. Gardens," xv. p. 434. "In Herr Gredler's 
 monastery one of the monks had been accustomed for some 
 months to put food regularly on his window-sill for ants 
 coming up from the garden. In consequence of Herr 
 Gredler's communications he took it into his head to put the 
 bait for the ants, pounded sugar, into an old inkstand, and 
 hung this up by a string to the cross piece of his window 
 and left it hanging freely. A few ants were in with the bait. 
 These soon found their road out over the string with their 
 grains of sugar, and so their way back to their friends. Be- 
 fore long a procession was arranged on the new road from 
 the window-sill along the string to the spot where the sugar 
 was, and so things went on for two days, nothing fresh 
 occurring. But one day the procession stopped at the old 
 feeding-place on the window-sill, and took the food thence, 
 without going up to the pendant sugar-jar. Closer obser- 
 vation revealed that about a dozen of the rogues were in the 
 jar above, and were busily and unwearyingly carrying the 
 grains of sugar to the edge of the pot, and throwing them 
 over to their comrades down below ! " 
 
 We here see an action exactly similar to that we found 
 among harvesting ants, some of which loosened seeds from 
 the stalks of plants and shook them down, while others below 
 gathered them up. 
 
 K 2
 
 136 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 "TWERYTHING which has hitherto been related about 
 Jjj ants, their behavior and their characteristic qualities, 
 their polity, their buildings and road-making, their storing- 
 up of provisions, their agricultural, malting, cattle-tending, 
 and milking proceedings, their acuteness in foraging for food, 
 their division of labor, their power of inter-communication, 
 etc., is indeed most noteworthy, and is fitted to awaken in 
 us respect and admiration towards the little creatures. But 
 all that has been told retires into the background as to 
 psychological significance in the intellectual life of these 
 animals, when we find or remember that the ants, as already 
 said, for an unknown length of time have had a politico- 
 social institution which had played and still plays a great 
 part in the history of human nations and civilization. 
 This institution, indeed, seems at first sight to harmonise 
 badly with the otherwise social-democratic tendency and 
 arrangements of the Ant Republic. But when we remem- 
 ber that slavery existed in the republics of antiquity and not 
 only well agreed with the rest of the polity, but was even an 
 essential support of the same, we can scarcely deprive the 
 Ant Republic of its democratic character on account of 
 slavery. And this the rather since slavery among ants is as 
 mild, if not milder, than it was in Greece and Rome, where 
 freed slaves were often known to rise to the highest offices 
 and dignities of the state, where as in Rome, Greek slaves 
 were the tutors and trainers of the young, and where slavery, 
 odious as it may be in and for itself, none the less contri- 
 buted to the general advance of civilization. Besides slavery 
 among ants is on a very important point far superior to that 
 of man, and it may be said without question that in this 
 respect ants think and act more humanely than men them- 
 selves ! For instance, they never allow groAvn-up members
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 137 
 
 of their race, come to their full antly consciousness, to be 
 enslaved, whereas human slave-makers are known never to- 
 have the smallest scruple on this head. For the ant-kid- 
 nappers only steal larvae and pupae, which they bring up as 
 regular slaves within their dwellings, so that these last have 
 never tasted the condition and the sweetness of freedom. 
 Only quite young ants, one or two days old, recognizable by 
 their clear color, which'are not yet out of long-clothes and 
 do not yet know what is " manly (or womanly) pride before 
 the throne of a king," are tolerably often made into slaves, 
 and accustom themselves quickly and easily to their new 
 position. The slaves of the ants, however, do not seem to 
 be conscious of the loss, or rather of the absence of freedom, 
 and as a rule work willingly and uncompelled in common 
 with their masters at all the tasks necessary for the mainte- 
 nance of the colony, such as building the dwelling, searching 
 for plant-lice, tendance and feeding of larvae and pupae, and 
 so on, and even fight against members of their own species 
 in company with their robber-lords. They are regarded 
 more as friends, brothers, or helpers than as real slaves. 
 They never think of escaping from slavery by flight, although 
 Forel, as will be told afterwards, once observed a revolt 
 among them. This rule applies at least to the Swiss species 
 observed by Huber and A., while in the south of England 
 colonies have been seen in which the slaves never leave, or 
 venture to leave the nest, and are thus, in the true sense of 
 the word, domestic slaves. 
 
 As regards the slave holders themselves, we are acquainted 
 with three kinds in Europe ( F. rufescens, F. sanguined, and 
 Strongyloynathus), of which only the two first are accurately 
 known. The most interesting among them is the often 
 mentioned and famous Amazon (Formica or Polyergus 
 rufescens) [the rufescent ant of Kirby, TR.], whose note- 
 worthy doings and habits were first exactly observed and 
 described by Huber. It is a large, strong, very active, 
 shining -red ant, which behaves just as do human lords as a 
 rule ; namely, it does not work, but leaves everything to 
 be looked after by its servants, slaves, and laborers. It does 
 not even eat by itself, but lets itself be fed by its slaves, 
 and behaves just like the Llama of Thibet, who also has 
 food put into his mouth by his slaves, because it is thought 
 beneath the dignity of so great a lord to serve himself. Do
 
 138 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 the Amazons think the same ? or do they follow the maxim 
 held by many men that work is shameful ? No the ant 
 has a far better ground for its conduct, or a far better and 
 more cogent excuse than its human examples or followers. 
 It cannot feed itself, and cannot discharge the regular duties 
 of an ant, owing to its long, narrow, and strong mandibles, 
 which do not form a toothed edge, as in other species, but 
 run out into a sharp and strong point, so that they must 
 be regarded as regular jaws. These jaws are indeed admir- 
 able for use as weapons, and are specially adapted to pierce 
 the head and brain of an enemy, but make self-feeding and 
 work impossible. The Amazon is therefore entirely de- 
 pendent on the goodwill of its slaves. Without their help 
 it would starve to death, and the whole colony would perish 
 from want of care and nourishment. 
 
 Huber placed a number of ants (about 30) with their 
 larvae and pupre and some earth in a box. and supplied them 
 with plenty of food. After the lapse of only two days some 
 of the ants died of hunger, or rather of thirst, although, 
 according to Forel's experience, ants can live for four 
 weeks without food, if the air or the earth is sufficiently 
 damp. The Amazons were neither able to feed themselves, 
 nor tend their young, nor work in the earth. Huber then 
 put in a single ant of the slave species, and it quickly put 
 everything to rights. It fed young and old with the honey 
 lying there, began to build cells for the pupae and larvae, 
 cleaned them and so on. In order to substantiate this 
 observation Lespes one day put a piece of moistened sugar 
 in front of a nest of Amazons. It was soon discovered by 
 one of the ants of the slave-species (F. fttsca, or small black 
 ant [negro, TR.] ). It eat as much as it could and then 
 went back into the nest. Other gluttons soon appeared, 
 and the delicious meal was busily devoured. At last Lespes 
 noticed some Amazons come out. They first ran about in a 
 puzzled way, without touching the sugar, until at last they 
 began to pull at the legs of their duty-forgetting slaves, 
 thereby reminding them that they should be served. This 
 was done and all parties seemed content. 
 
 Forel also never saw an Amazon eat alone. If one was 
 hungry, it tapped a slave on the head with its feelers, until 
 the latter brought up or regurgitated a drop of nourishment 
 from its proventriculus and gave it to its master, mouth to
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 139 
 
 mouth. All the other relations of Huber were fully con- 
 firmed by Forel. He put twelve Amazons with pupje, 
 larvse, and abundant food (dead insects, larvae, meat, honey, 
 sugar) in a glass jar filled with damp earth. The Amazons 
 did not move about but sat together in a corner. When 
 Forel compelled one to go to the honey it behaved very 
 clumsily, messed its forefeet and its feelers in it, and turned 
 back again to its corner. Its whole conduct was exactly 
 the opposite of what -ants are accustomed to do under 
 similar circumstances. The other Amazons also all avoided 
 the honey, instead of touching it. On the other hand they 
 several times vainly begged to each other for food. This 
 lasted for several days, and all the food remained untouched. 
 Two of the Amazons died, the others remained in good 
 health, thanks to the damp earth. The larvae visibly fell 
 away. As soon as an Amazon came near them they turned 
 to it to ask for food, but it contented itself with gently 
 touching them with its antennas, apparently in order to explain 
 that it was unable to do as they wished. After the lapse of 
 seven days all remained in the same state ; Forel then took 
 away the meat and the dead insects, which had putrefied, 
 and this time brought a slave belonging to the F. rufibarbis 
 or cunicularia, a sub-species of F.fusca. The new comer was 
 immediately surrounded by the Amazons, begging for food. 
 At first it pushed back the crowd. But when it discovered 
 the honey it filled itself in less than ten minutes, and then 
 began to feed the Amazons, one after another. Without 
 moving, it let a clear drop, as large as the head of an 
 Amazon, run out of its mouth, and this was at once 
 swallowed by the Amazon, which caressed its friend with its 
 antennae and fore- feet. The slave eat up the store of honey 
 in this way, and divided it among its masters. It then 
 began to look to the pupae, all the larvae having perished for 
 want of nourishment. Another day Forel gave it a com- 
 panion, and the two together now built rooms for the pupae 
 and for their masters. W. M. R. (" Nature," 1879, No. 1) 
 made an exactly similar observation. He put thirty Amazons 
 with four larvae and some honey into a box, and after two 
 days found five of them dead. He then put in three slaves, 
 which at once set to work, fed the Amazons, acted as nurses 
 to deliver two larvae which were just emerging, and had 
 brought everything to order in a few hours. The observer
 
 140 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 never saw the lazy little things feed themselves. Lubbock 
 also could only keep alive a captive Polyergus by placing 
 with it daily, during an hour, a slave which cared for and 
 fed it. 
 
 All this sufficiently shows how thoroughly dependent the 
 Amazons are upon their slaves. They also sometimes 
 allow themselves to be earned by their slaves, although the 
 latter are smaller and weaker. But this does not prevent 
 the Amazons from picking up the slaves and carrying them 
 off when changing their nest, or when otherwise necessary, 
 for they very well know that they cannot live without them. 
 Huber watched such an occurrence, when an army of 
 Amazons found a deserted nest of P. fusca, and emigrated to 
 it, each Amazon seizing a slave and carrying it off. All 
 domestic duties are completely handed over to the slaves, 
 while the masters give themselves up only to war and sloth. 
 If a nest of Amazons (generally situated under a flat stone) 
 be opened and disturbed, the masters run away without 
 troubling themselves further, while the slaves with noble 
 self-forgetfulness seize the pupa? and larvae and try to save 
 them. The Amazons are, therefore, in the true sense of the 
 word filibusters and highwaymen, and direct their whole 
 energy to robbery and slave-catching. Agreeably to this, 
 the neuters are endowed with a personal courage which 
 would seem to the highest degree marvellous to everyone 
 if an ant were not in question, and which drives them to the 
 most unheard-of exploits. A single Amazon, thrown into 
 the middle of a number of hostile ants, does not seek to 
 escape, as any other ant would do, but strikes right and left, 
 piercing the heads of ten or fifteen opponents, until at last 
 overpowered. This mad valor is only shown by the Amazon 
 when it seems to know that it must be lost in any case, for 
 when it fights in ranks and with the prospect of victory, its 
 courage is of a wiser kind, and the single ant does not sepa- 
 rate itself from the main army save under pressing need, and 
 if necessary retreats with the latter. Only when the fight 
 has become very embittered or has lasted for a long time, 
 some Amazons at last grow so furious that, forgetting every- 
 thing around them, they only take pleasure in blind biting 
 and slaughter. They bite at everything they see, at pupae, 
 larvfe, and even pieces of wood. Forel saw them kill their 
 own slaves which were trying to soothe them. Generally the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 141 
 
 slaves succeed in gradually quieting them down, and they 
 are then able to find their way home, whereas during their 
 fury they are incapable of doing this and run hither and 
 thither as though they were mad. About twenty Amazons, 
 are generally enough to put to flight a crowd of enemies 
 fifty times their number. Forel saw a small division of 
 Amazons, numbering less than a hundred individuals, sepa- 
 rate themselves from a great marauding expedition, and 
 march against a very large nest of F. ruftbarbis. Before reach- 
 ing it they stopped still for a few moments as though 
 frightened at their own boldness, and seemed to meditate. 
 But they then flung themselves into the midst of their 
 thousands of enemies, under whose numbers they soon dis- 
 appeared. Several were seen to penetrate into the nest itself, 
 in spite of the heavy hostile columns pressing out of it. 
 Forel did not expect to see a single one come out again. 
 The attacked ants appeared little disturbed, seeing the 
 numerical weakness of their foes, and only here and there 
 tried to save a pupa. The assailants, in spite of their 
 audacity were unable to get much, and only about a third 
 were seen returning laden with booty. Two or three Ama- 
 zons were made prisoners, and the small number of the 
 attackers was even useful to them, as the inhabitants of the 
 nest rushed furiously about, without being able to seize 
 them owing to their scattering. Their return was molested 
 for a distance of two or three decimetres. 
 
 That which makes the Amazons so specially dreaded by 
 the other ants is not their matchless courage so much as 
 their manner of battle. They are not contented, like others 
 of their race, with tearing off their enemies' legs, or feelers, 
 or pieces of their bodies, or with biting the latter into pieces, 
 and indeed the peculiar form of their mandibles, already 
 described, renders this impossible ; so they forthwith seize 
 the head of their enemy and pierce it with their sharp 
 strong jaws exactly at the place whereat the brain is situated. 
 This attack generally succeeds and has immediate death as 
 its result. Biit Forel one day saw a veiy large ant, 
 belonging to the species Atta structor, wounded in this way, 
 whose very hard head presented unexpected resistance. The 
 attacking ant finally let its enemy loose, without being able 
 completely to attain its object, and Forel noticed that the 
 wounded ant was unable to move its jaws which had been.
 
 142 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 mutilated by the bite, and were hanging loosely down. But 
 it was able to run. 
 
 Most interesting naturally is the description of the 
 marauding excursions and slave hunts themselves, under- 
 taken from time to time by the Amazons, in order to bring 
 to their nests the greatest possible number of pupae of the 
 slave species, which latter are destined to become regular 
 slaves. These marauding excursions, and especially the 
 wars and battles of the ants, which will be hereafter 
 described, have so striking and surprising a resemblance to 
 the wars and battles of men, that it seems as though ants 
 had taken men, or men ants, for a model. For, to philo- 
 sophers, standing above the strife of parties and contem- 
 plating men, the relative circumstances are equally ridiculous 
 and contemptible, although the animal stands higher than 
 the man in so far as it generally fights only for the sake of 
 self-preservation, while among men the paltriest passions 
 often give rise to his continual wars and quarrels, destroying 
 the fruits of industry. Men will not emerge from their 
 half-animal past and reach the full development for 
 which they are destined, until everlasting peace and the 
 universal brotherhood of nations shall have changed the 
 present sad state of things for the attainment of the general 
 good. 
 
 Lespes describes as follows a marauding excursion of the 
 Amazons watched by himself : " These expeditions only 
 take place towards the end of the summer and in autumn. 
 At this time the winged' members of the slave species 
 (F. fusca and F. cunicularia) have left the nest, and the 
 Amazons will not take the trouble to bring back useless 
 consumers. When the sky is clear our robbers leave their 
 town in the afternoon at about three or four o'clock. At 
 first no order is perceptible in their movements, but when 
 they are all gathered together they form a regular column, 
 which then moves forward quickly, and each day in a dif- 
 ferent direction. They march closely pressed together, and 
 the foremost always appear to be seeking for something on the 
 ground. They are each moment overtaken by others so 
 that the head of the column is continually growing. They 
 are in fact seeking the traces of the ants which they propose 
 to plunder, and it is scent that guides them. They snuff 
 over the ground like hounds following the track of a wild
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 143 
 
 animal, and when they have found it they plunge headlong 
 forward, and the whole column rushes on behind. The 
 smallest armies 1 saw consisted of several hundred individual:?, 
 but I have also seen some four times as large. They then 
 form columns which may be five metres long, and as much 
 as fifty centimetres wide. After a march, which often lasts 
 a full hour, the column arrives at the nest of the slave 
 species. The F. cunicularice, which are the strongest, offer 
 keen opposition but without much result. The Amazons 
 soon penetrate within the nest, to come out again a moment 
 later, while the assailed ants at the same time rush out in 
 masses. During the whole time attention is directed solely 
 to the larvae and pupae, which the Amazons steal while the 
 others try to save as many as possible. They know very 
 well that the Amazons cannot climb, so they fly with their 
 precious burdens to the surrounding bushes or plants, whereto 
 their enemies cannot follow them. They then pursue the 
 retreating robbers and try to take away from them as much 
 of their booty as possible. But the latter do not trouble 
 themselves much about them and hasten on home. On their 
 return they do not follow the shortest road, but exactly the 
 one by which they came, finding their way back by smell. 
 Arrived at their nest, they immediately hand over their 
 "booty to the slaves, and trouble themselves no more about 
 It. A few days afterwards the stolen pupoa or nymphae 
 emerge, without memory of their childhood, and immediately 
 and without compulsion take part in all tasks." 
 
 They must gradually become accustomed to the war- 
 expeditions and slave-hunts of their masters, for, according 
 to Forel, they at first try to hold them back therefrom. 
 They gradually come to regard them as a matter of course, 
 and no longer oppose them, but give their masters a bad 
 reception if they come back empty handed. Espinas 
 ("Animal Societies," German ed., 1879, p. 362) confirms 
 from his own experience the observation already made by 
 Huber, " that Amazons which return empty-handed from an 
 expedition are badly received and pulled about by the dark 
 grey workers." Sometimes the slaves permit themselves 
 freedoms and impertinences towards their masters which 
 border on revolt and rebellion, but these are severely 
 punished if they pass a certain point. For a time an 
 Amazon will permit the importunity of its slave. But if it
 
 144 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 becomes too troublesome, it takes its head between its 
 terrible jaws, and the slave submits forthwith. If it does 
 not yield at once its death is certain. Forel one day saw 
 an Amazon worried by six or seven slaves, pinched, irritated, 
 pulled by the legs, etc. It put an end to the game by 
 catching hold of one of them and piercing its head. A dry 
 season often causes a rebellious disposition on the part of the 
 slaves, the Amazons requiring drink from them too often, 
 and the slaves being unable to meet such frequent demands. 
 They become irritable and bad tempered and would seriously 
 attack their masters if they were able to overcome them. 
 
 To come back to the marauding excursions. Lespes 
 arrived at the conclusion that these expeditions were not 
 carried out without ripe consideration and consultation, as 
 well as preceding inquiries by special emissaries as to the 
 hostile nests, which are often hard to find. Forel often saw 
 single Amazons or small divisions leave the nests at different 
 times during the day, and run about searching in various 
 directions. These scouts serve later as leaders of the expedi- 
 tion. Forel also saw four or five inspecting a discovered 
 nest of F. fusca and carefully investigating the entrances 
 and the situation. This is the more necessary as the 
 entrances are often difficult to find, so that in spite of all 
 care and forethought the expeditions not seldom end without 
 result. On the 29th July, 1873, in the afternoon at about 
 five o'clock, Forel saw an enormous army of Amazons 
 (about 1500) set out, and return home without finding any- 
 thing. Another time he saw them vainly endeavor for a 
 long time to penetrate into a nest of the fusca, the 
 dome of which was quite closed, and communicated with 
 the outer world by a subterranean canal opening at a distant 
 spot. On another occasion it was a whole hour before 
 they were able to find the entrance of a subterranean nest 
 of the fusca. Lastly, Forel saw the leaders, before an expe- 
 dition began, walk about on the surface of the nest for a 
 long time, as though in consultation. Suddenly several of 
 them went inside the nest, and soon afterwards out rushed 
 crowds of warriors, which tapped each others' heads with 
 their antennas. Some, meanwhile, remained in the nest each 
 time. The expedition was then arranged, the slaves paying 
 no attention to the whole matter. The continual renewal 
 of the head of the column arises from the fact, observed by
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 145 
 
 X,espes, that the original leaders remain behind to keep order 
 in the rear, to guide it, and to inspire the laggards, while 
 others take the place at the head. From time to time the 
 army makes a short halt, partly to let the rearguard close 
 up, partly because different opinions arise as to the direction 
 of the host, or because the place at which they are is un- 
 known to them. Forel several times saw the army com- 
 pletely lose its way ajn incident only once observed by 
 Huber. Forel puts the number of warriors in such an army 
 at from one hundred to more than two thousand. Its speed 
 is on an average a metre per minute, but varies much 
 according to circumstances, and is naturally least when 
 returning laden with booty. If the distance be very great, 
 such bodily fatigue may at last be felt that the whole attack 
 on the hostile nest is given up, and a retreat is begun ; 
 Forel once saw this happen after they had passed over a 
 distance of two hundred and forty yards. Sometimes it 
 seems as though, on coming within sight of the hostile nest, 
 a kind of discouragement took possession of them, and pre- 
 vented their making the attack. If the nest cannot at once 
 be found, the whole army halts, and some divisions are sent 
 forward to search for it, and these are gradually seen 
 returning towards the centre. Forel also saw such an army 
 only searching the first day, advancing zigzag, and with 
 frequent halts, whereas on the following day it went forward 
 to its aim swiftly and without delay, having found out the 
 road. It seems that a single ant, even if it knows the 
 way and the place, is not able alone to lead a large army, 
 but that a considerable number must be employed in this 
 duty. Mistakes as to the road occur with special ease during 
 the return journey, because the several ants are laden with 
 booty and cannot readily understand each other. Individual 
 ants are then seen to wander about in every direction often 
 for a long time, until they at last reach a spot known to 
 them, and then advance swiftly to their goal. Many never 
 come back at all. These mistakes easily occur when the 
 robbers which have passed into a hostile nest do not come out 
 again at the same holes whereby they entered, but by others 
 at some distance, for instance by a subterranean canal. 
 Coming out thus in a strange neighborhood they do not 
 know which way to take, and only some chance on the right 
 road during their aimless wanderings about, and recognise
 
 146 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 and follow it by smell. On the other hand such mistakes 
 scarcely ever happen to individuals in an unladen train, kept 
 in good array. 
 
 Other species of ants (F. fusca, rufa, sangninea)kno\v better 
 how to manage under such circumstances, than do the 
 Amazons. The laden ones lay down their loads, first find 
 out where they are, and only take them up again after they 
 have found their way. 
 
 If the booty seized in the nest first attacked is too large 
 to be all taken away at once, the robbers return once or 
 oftener so as to complete their work. The poor ravished 
 folk try to stop up the entrances of their nest with earth as 
 much as possible during the intervals, but the robbers open, 
 them again and go on with their plundering. When 
 all is over, the attacked ants, whose resistance has only been 
 feeble, bring back to the nest the larvae and pupa? they have 
 
 In carrying away the larvae and pupae the Amazons have 
 to be very careful not to wound them with their pointed 
 mandibles, whereas the other species easily accomplish this- 
 task with the help of their toothed jaws. Yet they some- 
 times forget this care in the heat and the excitement of the 
 struggle, and kill their living burdens. They cannot, for 
 the same reason, carry along very large pupae, although 
 their smaller and weaker slaves are able to perform this 
 duty. Forel has admirably described (foe. cit. p. 225) their 
 useless and droll attempts under such circumstances. 
 
 The ants, as already said, do not have regular leaders nor 
 chiefs. Yet it is certain that in each expedition, alteration 
 of road or other change, the decision during that event 
 comes from a small knot of individuals, which have previously 
 come to an understanding and carry the rest and the unde- 
 cided along them. These do not always follow immediately, 
 but only after they have received several taps on the head 
 from the members of the " ring." The procession does not 
 advance until the leaders have convinced themselves by 
 their own eyesight that the main part of the army is fol- 
 lowing. How desirable an example for men, amongst whom 
 it is generally said : Tot capita tot sensus (so many heads so 
 many opinions), and amongst whom these divisions of 
 opinions and interests so often mutilate or hinder the most 
 important and useful undertakings.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 147 
 
 One clay Forel saw some Amazons on the surface of a 
 nest of the F. fusca seeking and sounding in all directions, 
 without being able to find the entrance. At last one of 
 them found a very little hole, hardly as large as a pin's 
 head, through which the robbers penetrated. But since 
 owing to the smallness of the hole the invasion went on 
 slowly, the search was continued, and an entrance was 
 found further off, through which the Amazon army 
 gradually disappeared. All was quiet. About five minutes 
 later Forel saw a booty-laden column emerge from each 
 hole. Not a single ant was without a load. The two 
 columns united outside and retreated together. 
 
 A marauding excursion of the Amazons against the F. 
 ritfibarbis, a sub-species of the F. fusca, or small black ants,, 
 took place as follows : The vanguard of the robber army 
 found that it had reached the neighborhood of the hostile 
 nest more quickly than it had expected ; for it halted sud- 
 denly and decidedly, and sent a number of messengers which 
 brought up the main body and the rearguard with incredible 
 speed. In less than thirty seconds the whole army had 
 closed up, and hurled itself in a mass on the dome of the 
 hostile nest. This was the more necessary as the rufibarbes 
 during the short halt had discovered the approach of the 
 enemy, and had utilised the time to cover the dome with defen- 
 ders. An indescribable struggle followed, but the superior 
 numbers of the Amazons overcame and they penetrated into 
 the nest, while the defenders poured by thousands out of 
 the same holes, with their larvae and pupa? in their jaws, 
 and escaped to the nearest plants and bushes, running over 
 the heaps of their assailants. These looked on the matter 
 as hopeless and began to retreat. But the rufibarbes, furious 
 at their proceedings, pursued them, and endeavored to get 
 away from them the few pupae they had obtained, by trying 
 to seize the Amazons' legs and to snatch away the pupae. 
 The Amazon lets its jaws slip slowly along the captive pupa 
 as far as the head of its opponent and pierces it, if it does not, 
 as generally happens, draw back. But it often manages to 
 seize the pupa at the instant at which the Amazon lets it go 
 and flies with it. This is managed yet more easily when a 
 comrade holds the robber by the legs, and compels it to 
 loose its prey in order to guard itself against its assailant. 
 Sometimes the robbers seize empty cocoons and carry them
 
 148 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 away, but they leave them on the road when they have dis- 
 covered their mistake. In the above case the strength of 
 the rufibarbes proved at last so great that the rearguard of 
 the retreating army was seriously pressed, and was obliged 
 to give up its booty. A number of the Amazons also were 
 overpowered and killed, but not without the rufibarbes also 
 losing many people. None the less did some individuals, as 
 though desperate, rush into the thickest hosts of the enemy 
 penetrated again into the nest and carried off several pupas, 
 by sheer audacity and skill. Most of them left their prey 
 to go to the help of their comrades when assailed by the 
 rufibarbes. Ten minutes after the commencement of the 
 retreat all the Amazons had left the nest, and, being swifter 
 than their opponents, they were only pursued for about half 
 way back. Their attack had failed on account of a short 
 delay ! 
 
 On another occasion observed by Forel, in which several 
 fertile Amazons also took part and killed many enemies, the 
 nest was thoroughly ravished, but the retreat was also in 
 this case very much disturbed and harassed by the superior 
 numbers of the enemy. There were many slain on both sides. 
 That in spite of the above-mentioned unanimity different 
 opinions among the members of an expedition sometimes 
 hinder its conduct, the following observation seems to shew : 
 An advancing column divided after it had gone about ten 
 yards from the nest. Half turned back, while the other 
 half went on, but after some time hesitated and also turned 
 back. Arrived at home it found those which had formerly 
 turned back putting themselves in motion in a new difection. 
 The newly returned followed them, and the re-united army, 
 after various wheelings, halts, etc., at last turned home 
 again by a long way round. The whole business looked like 
 a promenade. But apparently different parties had different 
 nests in view, while others were entirely against the expedi- 
 tion. Yet perhaps it was only a march for exercise. 
 
 Outer obstacles do not, as a rule, hinder the Amazons 
 when they are once on the march. Forel saw them wade 
 through some shallow water, although many were drowned 
 in it, and then march over a dusty high road, although the 
 wind blew half of them away. As they returned, booty- 
 laden, neither wind, nor dust, nor water could make them lay 
 down their prey. They only got back with great trouble,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 149 
 
 and turned back again to bring fresh booty although many 
 lost their lives. 
 
 The scenes which occur during the marauding excursions 
 are as manifold and as various as during the wars and 
 marauding expeditions of men, and like these might either be 
 sung in the style of the epic poem or written of as in a general's 
 dispatches, if they did not concern ants. An Amazon 
 column goes back to ft nest that it has already partially 
 ravished, in order to finish its work, but has become rather 
 scattered on the way. The small number of robbers march- 
 ing in front are seized and taken prisoners by the assailing 
 rnfibarbes, which have meanwhile assembled. The Amazons 
 following, seeing this, halt and await the main army. After 
 its arrival the mfibarbes are attacked and flung aside in heaps. 
 The prisoners are freed, and fresh pupaa carried away. 
 
 The rvfibarbes preserve their warlike character even as 
 slaves. If hostile ants approach the nest in which they live 
 as slaves, they gallantly attack them, while the small black 
 slaves (F. fusca) are content to call their masters, and only 
 rarely take part themselves in the fight. On the other hand, 
 they help diligently in the plundering, when their owners 
 have destroyed a hostile nest or a hostile army. Forel saw 
 them pick up and carry back to the nest some of their 
 masters which had lost their way in the heat of battle. 
 
 The most terrible enemy of the Amazons is the sanguine 
 ant (jP. sanguined), which also keeps slaves and thereby often 
 comes into collision with the Amazons on their marauding 
 excursions. It is not equal to it in bodily strength or 
 fighting capacity, but surpasses it in intelligence ; according 
 to Forel it is the most intelligent of all the species of ants. 
 If Forel, for instance, poured out the contents of a sack 
 filled with a nest of the slave species near an Amazon nest, 
 the Amazons apparently generally regarded the tumbled 
 together heap of ants, larvae, pupa3, earth, building materials, 
 etc., as the dome of a hostile nest, and took all imaginable but 
 useless pains to find out the entrances thereinto, leaving on one 
 side for this investigation their only object, the carrying off 
 the pupae : but the sanguine ants under similar circumstances 
 did not allow themselves to be deceived, but at once 
 ransacked the whole heap. On August 3, 1869, Forel set 
 down an apparatus containing an artificial nest of Amazons 
 with small black slaves (F. fusca) quite close to a nest of the
 
 150 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 sanguine ants. The slaves came out first, and were at once 
 seized by the sanguine ants and slain in great numbers. 
 But as these approached close to the Amazon nest, about a 
 dozen Amazons rushed out and flung themselves on the 
 intruders. Their small number, however, disappeared in the 
 masses of their enemies, which manifested an even more 
 menacing disposition. Now came new warriors out of the 
 nest to help, and although far fewer in number than the 
 sanguine ants, flung the assailants back to the entrance of 
 their own nest. Among them, Forel saw a single ant engaged 
 in combat with ten or twenty opponents. But this was not 
 enough ; the Amazons followed their enemies, which seemed 
 overcome by panic, right into their nest and chased out all 
 the inmates, and then began such a plundering, and such 
 numbers of pupas were brought out, that the entrance of the 
 Amazon nest began to be stopped up. About thirty Amazons 
 had fallen, most of them by the poison of their enemies, 
 while heaps of dead sanguine ants covered the ground. The 
 ravished pupae or nymphae were eaten or thrown away by the 
 slaves if they belonged to the sanguine species, while those 
 belonging to slave species were carried into the nest to be 
 brought up as leaves. Only after many days did the driven 
 away sanguine ants, which had meanwhile taken refuge in 
 the neighboring grass, venture back to their nest. 
 
 Another time Forel saw the two slave-making species 
 meet during a marauding excursion. An Amazon army 
 was marching in rather loose order, when Forel noticed at a 
 distance of only a few decimetres a number of rvfibarbes 
 which had fled to bushes and stalks with pupae in their 
 mouths. This led him to the discovery of a rujibarbis nest, 
 which had just been plundered by the sanguine ants, on the 
 dome of which a large number of the robbers were still 
 promenading. Meanwhile the Amazon army had come up, 
 and flung the sanguine ants, which fled in every direction, 
 off the ant heap, but could find nothing left in the empty 
 nest. They thereupon angrily followed the sanguine ants, 
 which scattered and hid in the grass, no great results 
 following. One day (August 12) the inhabitants of an 
 Amazon nest were warming themselves in the sun, hanging 
 motionless and in masses from the grass-stalks sprouting 
 over their nest. A signal was suddenly given which set 
 them all in movement. Only some which were too far
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 151 
 
 off appeared not to have understood it and remained quiet 
 But they also ran rapidly up when they saw the general 
 commotion. The procession moved off towards a nest of 
 the/wsca, but before it arrived Forel had poured out on it a 
 sackful of sanguine ants kept ready, and had made a breach 
 in the nest. The sanguine ants pressed in, while thefuscce 
 came out to defend.themselves. At this moment the first 
 Amazons arrived. When they saw the sanguine ants they 
 drew back and awaited the main army, which appeared much 
 disturbed at the news. But once united, the bold robbers 
 rushed at their foes. The latter gathered together and beat 
 back the first attack, but the Amazons closed up their ranks 
 and made a second assault which carried them on to the 
 dome and into the midst of the enemy. These were over- 
 thrown, as well as a number of F. pratensis, which Forel at 
 this moment poured out on the nest. The conquerors 
 delayed for a moment on the dome after their victory, and 
 then entered the nest to bring out a little of the valuable 
 booty. A few Amazons which were mad with anger did not 
 return with the main army, but went on slaughtering blindly 
 among the conquered and the fugitives of the three species, 
 fusca, pratensis, and sanguined. 
 
 The ravished mfibarbes once became so desperate at their 
 overthrow that they followed the robbers to their own nest, 
 and the latter had some trouble in defending it. The rufi- 
 barbes let themselves be killed by hundreds, and really seemed 
 as though they courted death. A small number of the 
 Amazons also sank under the bites of their enemies. The 
 nest contained slaves of the rufibarbis species, which on this 
 emergency fought actively against their own race. There 
 were also slaves of the species fusca, so that the nest included 
 three different species of ants. 
 
 The same nest is often revisited many times on the same day 
 or at different periods until either there is no more to steal, 
 or the plundered folk have hit upon better mode of defence. 
 A column which was in the act of going back to such a plun- 
 dered nest turned when half-way there, and halted, apparently 
 on no other ground than because it had met the rearguard 
 of the army, and had learned that the nest was exhausted, 
 and that there was nothing more to be had there (Forel, loc. 
 cit., p. 318). The robbers then went off to a rujibarbis nest 
 which was in the neighborhood, and killed half the inhabi- 
 
 L2
 
 152 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 tants while plundering the nest. The surviving rufilarbes 
 returned after the robbery and brought up new progeny ; 
 but thirteen days later the Amazons again reaped a rich 
 harvest from the same nest. The Amazon army often severs 
 itself into two separate divisions when there is not enough 
 for both to do at the same spot. Sometimes one division 
 finds something and the other nothing, and they then re- 
 unite. If any obstacle be placed in their way they try to 
 overcome it, in doing which some leave the main army, lose 
 themselves, and only find their way home again with diffi- 
 culty. Forel has tried to establish the normal frequency of 
 expeditions, and found that a colony watched by himself for 
 a space of thirty days sent out no less than forty-four 
 marauding excursions. Of these about eight and twenty 
 were completely, nine partially, and the remainder not at all 
 successful. He four times saw the army divide into two. 
 Half the expeditions were levelled against the rujibarbes, half 
 against the jfwscee. On an average a successful expedition 
 would bring back to the colony a thousand pupae or larvas. 
 On the whole, the number of future slaves stolen by a 
 strong colony during a favorable summer may be reckoned 
 at forty thousand ! 
 
 The internecine battles which occasionally break out 
 among the Amazons themselves are naturally the most cruel. 
 They tear each other to pieces with incredible fury, and 
 knots of five or six individuals which have pierced each 
 other may be seen rolling over each other on the ground, 
 it being impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. 
 Civil wars among men also are known to be the most 
 embittered and the most bloody.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SLAVERY (Continued). 
 
 rE habits of the F. sanguined, or sanguine ant, the 
 second European slave-making species, much resemble 
 those of the Amazons. But there is the essential difference 
 between them that the sanguine ants are not, like the 
 Amazons, wholly dependent upon their slaves, for they are 
 able to work and can feed themselves. They therefore 
 keep their slaves more as helpers than as servants, and do 
 not require nearly so large a number of them as do the 
 Amazons. They can even do without them, for Forel has 
 often found a nest of the sanguined quite without slaves, as 
 in the Maloggia Pass at the foot of Mount Tendre and else- 
 where. The marauding excursions of the sanguined are also 
 far less frequent than those of the Amazons and only take 
 place in each colony two or three times a year. The fused 
 and the rufibdrlis, or cunicularia, here also generally provide 
 the slaves, which work in common with their masters at 
 building dwellings and roads, as well as attending the larvae, 
 pupas, etc. ; occasionally slaves are taken from other species. 
 The sanguine ants are generally fond of honey, and tear 
 to pieces living insects in order to lick up the juices of their 
 bodies. They do not spare the slave-pupae brought in, and 
 sometimes even eat their own eggs, larvae, and nymphae, as 
 well as those of other species which they do not generally 
 enslave. They are quite able to distinguish the nymphae of 
 the males and fertile females of their slaves from those of 
 the workers, and kill the former while they spare the latter. 
 When Forel offered them a living wasp, it was seized by 
 four workers, sprinkled with poison and strangled. The 
 corpse was then torn in pieces. Amazons, which Forel had 
 brought up artificially with sanguine ants and four or five 
 other species, showed none of their usual ferocity and were 
 quite peaceable, and all those brought up together lived
 
 154 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 happily with each other, giving each other honey, etc. 
 Even when Forel set them at liberty they remained together 
 and all betook themselves to their new dwelling. And then 
 occurred the following noteworthy episode. A little san- 
 guine ant wanted to take hold of an Amazon and carry it 
 off. The carried ant, during the transit, generally rolls 
 itself round the head of its bearer, so as to lighten its weight 
 as much as possible. But as the Amazon did not or would 
 not perform this duty, the sanguine ant contented itself with 
 seizing one leg and marching off towards the new nest. As 
 the Amazon resisted, but did not try to bite, the affair pro- 
 ceeded slowly. After a while the sanguine ant let its com- 
 rade go in order to reconnoitre. Meanwhile the Amazon 
 ran uneasily hither and thither. A chance passer-by, a 
 rufa, or hill ant, belonging to the community saw this, and 
 tried on its part to carry the Amazon on. But the latter 
 still resisted, and as the hill ants are rather clumsy it failed 
 in the attempt. The sanguine ant now came back and 
 touched the rufa several times with its feelers. The com- 
 munication must have been satisfactory, for the latter let go 
 and resigned the Amazon to its original bearer, which now 
 pulled it along to the new nest. 
 
 This artificial friendship between distinct and usually 
 hostile species plainly shows how much education and the 
 first impressions of childhood and youth may change and 
 influence even inherited character and the pretended " in- 
 stinct." 
 
 In their method of fighting, the sanguinece show special 
 refinement and circumspection. When they have to do with 
 an enemy equal to them in strength they never attack it in 
 front, but always try to assail its flanks. They generally 
 march in small divisions, which continually send out scouts 
 and spies, partly to bring up the rear and partly to find out 
 the movements and the weak side of the enemy. When 
 they have to do with a regular army of the large F. pra- 
 tensis, they try to terrify it by surprises. They send several 
 divisions to the flanks and rear of the foe, and then rush 
 with incredible impetuosity into the midst of the hostile 
 army, but retreat the moment they find that the resistance 
 is too strong. They know how to unite courage and pru- 
 dence, and understand, just like men, how to " fall back 
 to the rear " when it is necessary, as military phraseology
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 155 
 
 has it. They, however, generally succeed in their object, as 
 the pratenses are struck with fear by this attack from behind, 
 and give way. At such moments is shown the intelligence 
 of the sanguinece. They know how to seize the exact 
 moment at which the enemy shows signs of retreat, and 
 spread the intelligence from one to another with marvellous 
 rapidity. They unhesitatingly throw themselves amongst 
 the foe, slay right and left like the Amazons, and tear away 
 the pupae from their opponents. The pratenses are in such a 
 state of consternation that they would not offer the least 
 resistance if they were hundreds against one. Forel saw 
 some conquered pratenses which had fled in crowds with 
 their pupas beneath the broad leaves of a plantain. A single 
 sanguine ant pushed in among them, whereupon they all fled 
 leaving their pupae behind. No species of ant has such a 
 desire for alien pupae as has the sanguinea; to steal them 
 seems the one object of its life. While the pratensis, for 
 example, gets angry with its opponents and murders its 
 prisoners, the sanguinea scarcely ever does anything of the 
 kind. It conquers its enemies less by killing them than by 
 spreading terror in the hostile camp. Forel has often seen 
 the same warrior rob its enemies of pupa after pupa without 
 molesting them further, and without being able to carry 
 away all the stolen pupae. Does it intend merely to spread 
 fear, or to prevent the enemy from carrying away the pupas? 
 It is certain that it secures both ends. 
 
 " In the genus Formica, which I regard as the most intel- 
 ligent of ant genera," says Forel (loc. cit., p. 443), " the 
 sanguinea without doubt carries off the palm. No other 
 species shows so much diversity in its habits and in its 
 ability to adapt itself to circumstances. It takes its slaves 
 from a number of other species, fights with wonderful 
 tactical skill, builds its nest in every imaginable way accord- 
 ing to the place at which it chances to find itself, invents 
 different kinds of attack for different enemies (L. niger, F. 
 pratensis, F. fusca) " and so on. 
 
 As to the slave-hunts of the sanguinea they have already 
 been described by Huber in unsurpassable fashion. Since 
 then Charles Darwin has also taken the trouble to watch 
 the slave-habits of this species, whereon we had better let 
 the celebrated naturalist speak for himself : 
 
 " I opened fourteen nests of F. sanguinea, and found a
 
 156 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 few slaves in all. Males and fertile females of the slave 
 species (F. fused} are found only in their own proper com- 
 munities, and have never been observed in the nests of F. 
 sanguined. The slaves are black and not above half the size 
 of their red masters, so that the contrast in their appearance 
 is very great. When the nest is slightly disturbed, the 
 slaves occasionally come out, and like their masters are 
 much agitated and defend the nest : when the nest is much 
 disturbed and the larvae and pupa) are exposed, the slaves 
 work energetically with their masters in carrying them away 
 to a place of safety. Hence, it is clear, that the slaves feel 
 quite at home 
 
 " One day I fortunately witnessed a migration of F. 
 sanguined from one nest to another, and it was a most 
 interesting spectacle to behold the masters carefully carry- 
 ing (instead of being carried by, as in the case of F. 
 nifescens) their slaves in their jaws. [Not always. L. B.] 
 Another day my attention was struck by about a score of 
 the slave makers haunting the same spot, and evidently not 
 in search of food; they approached and were vigorously 
 repulsed by an independent community of the slave species 
 (F. fused) ; sometimes as many as three of these ants cling- 
 ing to the legs of the slave-making F. sanguined. The latter 
 ruthlessly killed their small opponents, and carried their 
 dead bodies as food to their nest, twenty-nine yards distant; 
 but they were prevented from getting any pupa? to rear as 
 slaves. I then dug up a small parcel of the pupte of F.fusca 
 from another nest, and put them down on a bare spot near 
 the place of combat ; they were eagerly seized, and carried 
 off by the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, after all, they 
 had been victorious in their late combat. 
 
 " At the same time I laid on the same place a small parcel 
 of the pupas of another species, F. flava, with a few of these 
 little yellow ants still clinging to the fragments of the nest. 
 This species is sometimes, though rarely, made into slaves, 
 as has been described by Mr. Smith. Although so small a 
 species, it is very courageous, and I have seen it ferociously 
 attack other ante. In one instance I found to my surprise 
 an independent community of F. flava under a stone beneath 
 a nest of the slave-making F. sanguined; and when I had 
 accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants attacked their 
 big neighbors with surprising courage. Now I was curious
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 157 
 
 to ascertain whether F. sanguinea could distinguish the 
 pupa3 of F. fusca, which they habitually make into slaves, 
 from those of the little and furious F. flava, which they 
 rarely capture, and it was evident that they did at once 
 distinguish them : for we have seen that they eagerly and 
 instantly seized the pupa3 of F. fusca, whereas they were 
 much terrified when they came across the pupa?, or even the 
 earth from the nest of F. flava, and quickly ran away ; but 
 in about a quarter of an hour, shortly after all the little 
 yellow ants had crawled away, they took heart and carried 
 off the pupae. 
 
 " One evening I visited another community of F. san- 
 guinea, and found a number of these ants returning home 
 and entering their nests, carrying the dead bodies of F. 
 fusca (showing that it was not a migration) and numerous 
 pupse. I traced a long file of ants burthened with booty, 
 for about forty yards, to a very thick clump of heath, 
 whence I saw the last individual of F. sanguinea emerge, 
 carrying a pupa ; but I was not able to find the desolated 
 nest in the thick heath. The nest, however, must have been 
 close at hand, for two or three individuals of F. fusca were 
 rushing about in the greatest agitation, and one was perched 
 motionless with its own pupa in its mouth on the top of a 
 spray of heath, an image of despair over its ravaged home." 
 
 So far Darwin. But while he only gives a general 
 picture Forel here also relates many detailed observations of 
 the most interesting kind. He observed the expeditions of 
 the sanguinea to steal pupa? in Switzerland (Waadtland) from 
 the micldle of June to the middle of August. They march 
 in small troops which, in case of need, summon reinforce- 
 ments and therefore, as a mle, only reach their goal slowly. 
 Between the individual troops messengers or scouts run con- 
 tinually backwards and forwards. The first troop which 
 arrives at the hostile nest does not rush at it, as do the 
 Amazons, but contents itself with making provisional re- 
 connaissances, wherein some of the assailants are generally 
 made prisoners by the enemy, which have time to bethink 
 and to collect themselves. Reinforcements are now brought 
 up and a regular siege of the nest begins. A sudden 
 invasion, like that of the Amazons, is never seen. The 
 besieging army forms a complete ring round the hostile nest, 
 and the besiegers hold this with mandibles open and
 
 158 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 antennae drawn back, without going nearer. In this position 
 they beat off all assaults of the besieged, until they feel 
 themselves strong enough to advance to the attack. This 
 attack scarcely ever fails, and has for its chief object the 
 mastering of the entrances and outlets of the nest. A 
 special troop guards each opening, and only allows such of 
 the besieged to pass out as carry no pupas. This manoeuvre 
 gives rise to a number of comical and characteristic scenes. 
 By this means the sanguine ants in a few minutes manage 
 to have all the defenders out of the nests and the pupas left 
 behind. This is the case at least with the ruftbarbes, while 
 the rather less timid fuscoe try, even at the last moment 
 when it is useless, to stop up or barricade the entrances. 
 The sanguine ants do not indeed possess the terrible weapons 
 and the warlike impetuosity of the Amazons, but they are 
 stronger and larger. If afusca or a rufibarbis fights with a 
 sanguine ant for the possession of a pupa, it is generally 
 very soon overcome. While the main part of the army is 
 penetrating into the nest to steal the pupze, some divisions 
 pursue the fugitives, to take away from them the few pupae 
 which may chance to have been saved. They drive them 
 even out of the cricket-holes in which they have meanwhile 
 taken refuge. In short it is a razzia, or sweeping burglary, 
 as complete as can be imagined. In the retreat the robbers 
 in nowise hurry themselves, for they know that they are 
 threatened by no danger and no loss, and the complete empty- 
 ing of a large and distant nest often takes several clays in 
 accomplishing. The ants which have been so thoroughly 
 robbed scarcely ever return to their former abode. 
 
 It must be admitted that a human army, robbing a foreign 
 town or fortress, could not behave better, more prudently, 
 nor with more regard to circumstances than do these 
 wonderful animals. 
 
 As the only object of these expeditions is robbery, the 
 thieves do not, as a rule, trouble themselves about the 
 murder of their enemies, if these offer no active resistance. It 
 is only when the latter hang on their legs and will not let go 
 that they tear them in pieces with their jaws, for nothing 
 is more unpleasant to them than being held by the leg. 
 Their moderation, however, fails when they are merely con- 
 quering a strange nest, or are stealing such pupa3 as they use 
 for food, as of the Lasius niger or flavus ; in these cases they
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 159 
 
 kill the inhabitants without mercy, and take pleasure in 
 either changing into or living at the same time in such nests 
 near their own. They are also not content to have one 
 house or castle, but are like princes and rich people, who 
 have several houses, castles, or villas at their disposal, while 
 poor people have none at all or live in bad ones, like the 
 horses and dogs of the. rich. Forel knew one colony of the 
 sanguine ants which had three nests and lived in them in 
 turn ! 
 
 "When the sanguine ants are conquered, as sometimes 
 happens, as by the strong pratenses, or when their foes are in 
 too great numerical superiority, they understand how to 
 retreat in good order and defend to the uttermost the 
 entrances of their nest. The pratenses generally manage the 
 blockading of the nest so clumsily, that the sanguine ants 
 have time to fly with their pupae by the further outlets. 
 The only complete overthrow suffered by the sanguine ants 
 is met with, as already related, at the hands of the Amazons, 
 which unite the same tactics to better weapons, greater 
 decision, and more vigorous massed assaults. The Amazons 
 also march more rapidly and understand signals better. 
 They conquer the sanguine even more easily and quickly than 
 other species, because there is a certain amount of anxiety 
 in conjunction with their prudence, and they are mere easily 
 frightened by a sudden attack. Above all it appears as if 
 the impetuous assaults and surprises among most war-making 
 ants had for their chief object the spreading of sudden panic 
 in the hostile camp. ' Every kind of stratagem is also 
 practised if it can serve their object. Forel saw a laden 
 army of Amazons returning from a marauding expedition 
 suddenly attacked by a small troop of sanguine auts. A 
 part of the Amazons laid down their pupse in order to fight 
 better. The sanguine ants took advantage of this moment 
 to seize the deposited pupa3 and ran off with them. 
 
 After the Amazons the most powerful foe of the sanguine 
 ants is the often mentioned pratensis. Yet Forel managed, 
 by artificial mixing, to get the latter to completely serve as 
 slaves in some nests, and both lived together on the best 
 terms. If the pratenses are very numerous, the architecture 
 of the nest takes quite the character of their peculiar style 
 of building. Only the latter are, as a rule, seen prome- 
 nading on the dome of the nest. But at any alarm or
 
 160 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 on the approach of hostile troops most of them fly into 
 the interior to seek help; and in a moment the dome is 
 reddened by an eruption of sanguine ants. If a stranger 
 pratensis be thrown on the nest, those at home will fight 
 against their own brother with similar, or even greater, 
 anger than do their masters. During a change of abode 
 Forel saw the sanguine ants seize and carry off the pratenses, 
 while some of the latter turned back again. It seems as 
 though attachment to an old dwelling were stronger in the 
 latter than in the former, and this may arise from the 
 pratenses being better architects. 
 
 The third slave-holding species in Europe is the Strongy- 
 lognathus, a small Myrmica species, which takes its slaves 
 from the Tetramorium ccespitum, or turf ants, also belonging 
 to the genus Myrmica. It is rather rare and much resembles 
 the Amazons in its habits, and like them has long pointed 
 mandibles which make it incapable of work. On the other 
 hand it can feed itself, although it does so unwillingly and 
 prefers to be fed by its slaves. This is done, as Lespes re- 
 lates, in a very peculiar manner, for its own jaws and the 
 rather long jaws of its slaves make the usual rapprochement 
 of the two mouths very difficult if not impossible. It seizes 
 the slave, lays it* gently on its back, and lets itself be fed in 
 this position, in which the two mouths match. It also lets 
 itself be carried by its slaves, which are ten times as 
 numerous as the masters. The marauding excursions 
 appear to take place at night, for the Strongylognathus have 
 never been seen marching out during the day. 
 
 Forel, who distinguishes two sub-species, S. testaceus and 
 S. Hubert, calls the first do-nothings or sluggards, and a 
 pitiful caricature of the Amazons. Like them it tries to 
 kill, but is generally too feeble to succeed. The defence of 
 the nest is carried out more by the slaves than by the masters. 
 Yet the latter are brave and, like the Amazons, fling them- 
 selves into the midst of the enemy, biting quickly in all 
 directions, whereat the foes are more alarmed than they 
 need be, for they seldom succeed in killing an opponent 
 while they lose their own lives. They are even too weak 
 to carry away their enemies' pupa?, and make the most 
 comical efforts over them, whereas their slaves manage the 
 task very easily. Without the latter, S. testaceus would be 
 quite unable to plunder a hostile nest. Apparently the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 161 
 
 whole species is retrograde or undergoing retrogression, a 
 condition easily comprehensible on the principles of 
 evolution. 
 
 Forel bestows a somewhat better character on the S. 
 Hubert. He saw an army of these overthrow a colony of 
 the Tetramorium with skill and courage, without the help of 
 their slaves. In this case, as with the Amazons, their 
 pointed mandibles spread great terror among their opponents, 
 although they were rarely able to pierce their heads. Many 
 of them remained on the field of battle, the Tetramoria 
 seizing them on the breast with their jaws, and dismembering 
 them. This species also does no work, and lets itself be fed 
 by its slaves ; only in case of need does it condescend to 
 feed itself. 
 
 Before we quit the interesting question of slavery let us 
 throw a rapid glance on the slave species themselves, or at 
 least on the chief of them. 
 
 The most remarkable of these is the F. rufibarbis or cuni- 
 cularia, a sub-species of the F. fusca or small black ant, 
 the species which yields most of the slaves. It manifests 
 remarkable bravery and skill in its battles, whether with slave 
 hunters or with other species. It is able to chase the rather 
 clumsy F. rufa, or hill ant, away from its pupse, even when 
 the enemy is superior in numbers. If a rufa catch hold of 
 its leg, it either kills or disables it, and if the rufa let go, it 
 runs away. A badly guarded pupa is at once seen and 
 snatched away, and if a rufa lets go its pupa for an instant, 
 so as to get a better hold, it is at once carried off. Let a single 
 rufibarbis, says Forel, be put in the midst of rufce or pratenses, 
 covering the dome of a nest, and it will almost always be 
 found to escape scot free. It also catches flies at its 
 breeding time. On the other hand it does not understand, 
 as do other species, how to introduce order and tactics into 
 its united movements, whereas the individually less skilful 
 rufce always fight in close columns and sacrifice themselves 
 without hesitation to the common good. A small troop 
 never divides off to make a side attack, and no single ant 
 goes out by itself as an adventurer. It is also unable to 
 pursue a flying foe. 
 
 Perty (toe. cit., p. 334) says that he once, at Berne, beat 
 with his umbrella a hazel-nut bush on which countless 
 F. rufcB were busy, and then picked up a few of them. A
 
 162 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 specially large ant, " which by its whole behavior seemed as 
 though it recognised me as the disturber " rose threateningly 
 half erect,- and bit him in the finger. 
 
 C. Shroder, of Elberfeld (" Zool. Gardens," 1867, p. 225) 
 tried to give a ruja as food to a so-called Aphis-lion*, a 
 strong robber insect larva. But the brave ant turned the 
 tables and so faced its terrible foe that the latter stayed 
 where it was. The same observer had the opportunity of 
 watching the remarkable behavior of an ant-slave of the 
 F. fusca imprisoned with some red-brown ants and three 
 myrmecophilous insects (Lomechusa strumosa). It alone did 
 more than all the rest put together, carried the larvce and 
 pupaa to a place of safety, looked after the nursing and 
 feeding, etc., and seldom left the nursery. 
 
 The often-named F. pratensis is a sub-species of F. rufa, 
 and has colonies or nests containing from 5,000 to 500,000 
 individuals. Forel observed among them a remarkable case 
 of nursing the sick on the occasion of a change of abode. 
 On the dome of the old nest an ant, which was clearly ill, 
 was walking with tottering steps, drooping feelers, ajid half- 
 closed jaws. Other ants approached it, licked it, and con- 
 templated it from various points of view, trying gently to 
 draw it within the nest. Suddenly up came one of the out- 
 goers, pushed the others aside and tried to lay hold of the 
 sick ant. It invited it to take hold of one of its mandibles, 
 but the invalid did not seem to understand. After prolonged 
 and futile trouble, the latter at last folded back its legs and 
 antennae, and let itself be taken up by its companion, which 
 carried it to the new nest. A quarter of an hour later 
 Forel saw the pair still on their road, recognising them by 
 the unusual way in which the sick ant was carried. He pulled 
 them apart with a straw, and the sick one hobbled on. But 
 its friend came back as soon as it had recovered from its 
 fright and once more carried off the invalid. 
 
 A still more striking instance of care of the sick was 
 observed by Moggridge (loc. cit. p. 46), who saw an ant 
 (Atta) pull a sick comrade to a little pool, bathe it for 
 
 * [In Adelung's dictionary it is stated that the Aphis-eater, which is 
 probably the same as the Aphis-lion, lives on the leaves of elms, 
 changes into a fly, and lays in wait for the Aphides. It was first 
 minutely described in 1770, and is ranked by Linnaeus among the 
 Hemerobit. TK.]
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 163 
 
 several seconds, and then bring it back with great trouble 
 to dry it in the sun, and perhaps to let it recover its strength. 
 These cases are the more surprising, as ants usually are 
 wont to desert those which are very sick, or to "throw them 
 out of the nest, as is seen by Ebrard's experiments. 
 
 It was of the pratensis that Huber wrote the observations 
 touching its gymnastic sports which became so famous. He 
 saw these ants on a fine day assembled on the surface of their 
 nest and behaving in a way that he could only explain as 
 simulating festival sports or other games. They raised 
 themselves on their hind legs, embraced each other with 
 their forelegs, seized each other by the antennae, feet, or 
 mandibles and wrestled but all in friendliest fashion. They 
 then let go, ran after each other, and played hide and seek. 
 When one was victorious, it seized all the others in the ring, 
 and tumbled them over like ninepins. 
 
 This account of Huber's found its way into many popular 
 books, but in spite of its clearness won little credence from 
 the reading public. "I found it hard to believe Huber's 
 observation," writes Forel, " in spite of its exactness, until I 
 myself had seen the same." A colony of the pratensis 
 several times gave him the opportunity, when he approached 
 it carefully. The players caught each other by the feet or 
 jaws, rolled over each other on the ground like boys playing, 
 pulled each other inside the entrances of their nest only to 
 come out again and so on. All this was done without bad 
 temper, or any spirting of poison, and it was clear that all 
 the rivalry was friendly. The least breath from the side of 
 the observer was enough to put an end to the games. "I 
 understand," continues Forel, " that the affair must seem 
 marvellous to those who have not seen it, especially when 
 we remember that sexual attraction can here play no part."
 
 164 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FRIENDSHIPS AND ENMITIES. 
 
 THE capability of friendship, both social and individual, 
 is as much developed among ants as is that of war and 
 enmity. Also quite apart from the slave hunts, already 
 described, and undertaken for the attainment of a special 
 object, war and battle are the universal watchword of almost 
 all ant species, so that it may fairly be said that the ant is 
 the ant's worst enemy. Only some small and peaceful 
 species, such as the Botryomyrmex meridionalis, form an ex- 
 ception. As to the object of the continual and usually very 
 bloody wars, they seem often to be carried on just as.among 
 men, without any decided ground and from mere lust of 
 fighting and slaying. At other times they are struggles for 
 property and land, for soil and subsoil, plant lice, etc. ; at 
 other times again they are robberies of pupae which serve 
 for food, or of stored up provisions, as among the harvesting 
 ants, or the conquest of a new dwelling. Generally it may 
 be said without exaggeration that all the dwellers in the 
 same nest or the same colony are friends, all inhabitants of 
 strange or different nests or colonies are enemies ; and if 
 different species generally fight most frequently and eagerly, 
 yet often the most embittered battles occur between different 
 nests of the same species. If two hostile ants meet each 
 other, they generally fly from or avoid each other, but if 
 one of them is much larger and stronger or knows itself 
 to be supported by friends it will then attack the other. If 
 two friendly ants meet they either run silently past each 
 other, or else hold a conversation by means of their antennae. 
 Such a tapping of feelers also takes place when each is in 
 doubt whether it has to do with an enemy or a friend. If 
 the latter be the case and the friend finds that the abdomen 
 of the other is well filled, it begs, coaxing and stroking 
 with its feelers, for a little refreshment by the road, which
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 165 
 
 is willingly given in the way already described. According 
 to Forel, mutual feeding is a sure sign of friendship. The 
 same is true of mutual carrying, which is sometimes practised, 
 in order to show the friend a new road or place, sometimes 
 to obtain help for a given work at a certain spot. On a 
 change of dwelling those which know the way carry those 
 which do not know it,- and workers which are weary with a 
 long journey are also carried by their companions. It 
 sometimes happens that a conquered enemy is seized by the 
 victor and carried or pulled as a prisoner into the nest, but 
 this can be recognised by the particular way of carrying. 
 There is also very different behavior in the two cases if 
 the pair are forcibly separated, in the one friendly recog- 
 nition on meeting again, in the other flight or renewed strife. 
 Also the carrying of enemies is rare, while that of friends 
 is a very frequent occurrence. 
 
 If friendly ants are put together in a box they quickly 
 recognise each other, and carry, feed, and lick each other ; 
 if they are hostile they fall on or avoid one another. 
 
 "W. M. R. ("Nature," 1879, No. 4) put some little 
 flasks covered with muslin, some containing friendly or 
 related, and the others hostile or stranger ants, before the 
 nests of various species (F. ftisca, P. rufescens, etc.). The 
 former were each time left quite undisturbed and unnoticed, 
 while the latter were immediately attacked. They tried to 
 bite through the muslin, and as they could not succeed in 
 doing this they set sentinels in front of the hostile camp. At 
 last the muslin was bitten through, and the imprisoned ants 
 would soon have been killed if the observer had not taken 
 them away. W. M. R. considered that this experiment proved 
 that the feeling of hatred was stronger among these remark- 
 able creatures than that of love. An exactly similar 
 observation was made by Sir John Lubbock (loc. cz.), and 
 he found the animals he was experimenting on bit through 
 the muslin and killed those inside. If one of the latter 
 stretched a leg outside it was at once laid hold of, and the 
 enemy tried to pull it through. The same observer came to 
 the conclusion that his experiments proved that individual 
 friendships were to be found among ants. Some have very 
 many, others few, others again, as it seems, no friends. 
 Specimens of F. fusca, for example, never brought friends 
 to a foodstore they had discovered, while all others did.
 
 166 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 If two hostile ants meet, each of which knows that it can 
 reckon on the help of its comrades, a murderous conflict 
 generally takes place, in which mandibles, stings (when they 
 have them) and poison play the chief part. They also 
 snatch at each others' legs and try to pull each other into the 
 hostile camp, wherein swift justice is dealt out to the van- 
 quished. The battle is decided most quickly when one suc- 
 ceeds in seizing the thorax of its rival, and either pulls or 
 bites off the head or at least destroys the large nervous 
 cord that runs down the middle line of the body ; each 
 therefore tries to the utmost to guard itself against this 
 manoauvre, so that it only succeeds either by surprise or 
 when one of the combatants is much larger than the other. 
 Among ants with bad eye-sight battles are much slower 
 affairs than among those with good, as they guide themselves 
 almost only by their feelers. Sometimes the combatants or 
 the victors manifest a really infernal cruelty, which almost 
 approaches the wickedness shewn by man to man. They 
 slowly pull from their victim, that is rendered defenceless 
 by wounds, exhaustion, or terror, first one feeler qnd then 
 the other, then the legs one after another, until they at last 
 kill it, or pull it in a completely mutilated and helpless con- 
 dition to some out-of-the-way spot where it perishes miser- 
 ably. Yet some compassionate hearts are to be found 
 among the victors, which only pull the conquered to a distant 
 place in order to get rid of them, and there let them go with- 
 out injuring them. 
 
 If a single ant be seized at the same time by several 
 enemies it is, as a rule, lost. For while it is held fast on 
 every side, one of its opponents springs on its neck and tries 
 to bite through it. Sometimes it is only taken prisoner and 
 dragged into the hostile nest, there to be slaughtered in the 
 cruelest manner. A vanquished ant in dying often clasps 
 itself so firmly round the limbs of its enemy that the latter 
 has the greatest trouble to get free. Often its comrades 
 can only get the corpse away in pieces, while the head is 
 not seldom carried about for days, until decay makes it fall 
 off. Only the Amazons are able to avoid this misfortune 
 by piercing through the head of their enemies in the way 
 already described, for the jaws of their enemy lose their 
 strength when the brain is destroyed. 
 
 Among most ants their courage rises in proportion to the
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 167 
 
 number of their comrades or the size of their colony. The 
 same ant which shuns no danger when joined by many 
 others, becomes anxious and timid when it knows itself to 
 be alone or surrounded by few companions. Perhaps, also the 
 tendency to self-preservation and care for the safety of 
 smaller colonies or societies lead to the avoidance of serious 
 danger and conflicts, while larger societies see no harm in 
 sacrificing some of their citizens. 
 
 The wounded and the sick, as already mentioned, are taken 
 care of. If their case is regarded as hopeless, they are 
 carried to a distant place and left there to die. In similar 
 fashion, at the end of a fight, the corpses, or the remains of 
 them, are taken out of the nest, for the ants keep their nests 
 as clean as they do their bodies. Dupont maintains that 
 many species of ants have their own church-yards or com- 
 mon burial-grounds, and that they formally deposit therein 
 their dead or their fallen. Improbable as this may sound, 
 several casual observations have been made which prevent 
 us from relegating it quite to the region of fable. After a 
 battle artificially brought about in a garden between four 
 different species (rufa, sanguined, cinerea, and pratensis), 
 Forel saw the field of battle covered with the slain of each. 
 But the greater number were, remarkable to say, arranged 
 in a long and regular row as though they were to be buried. 
 Perty (loc. cit. p. 318) publishes a communication from 
 Mrs. Lewis Hatton, of Sidney, which relates a regular 
 burial of twenty ants pressed to death by their companions. 
 Bingley (loc. cit. p. 174) also mentions the observation of 
 an Englishman who saw an ant bring the body of a com- 
 i-ade out of the nest and carry it away to a distant place. 
 This he saw repeated several times, one after another. 
 Lubbock (loc. cit.) also saw dead ants carried out of the 
 nest and laid in heaps at a distant spot " exactly as in a 
 cemetery." McCook (loc. cit.) saw similar proceedings 
 among all the species which he observed. The corpses were 
 always heaped together in an out-of-the-way place, " as 
 though the crude idea of a mortuary had dawned on the 
 mind of the little creatures." 
 
 In all these cases the dead of their own friends have been 
 in question, but the corpses of enemies are generally torn in 
 pieces in order to lick up the sweet juices therein contained. 
 On the other hand, as Forel assures us, the grown ants of 
 
 M 2
 
 168 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 the same nest never seize each other with this intent, -al- 
 though many species, as already mentioned, eat their own 
 larvse and pupae. They would rather die of hunger. Can- 
 nibals among men are not so tender-hearted. 
 
 It is wonderful also to see the way in which friendly ants 
 and those which have been friendly recognise each 
 other after long separation, and distinguish between friends 
 and foes, however many .of them there may be, or even 
 when they belong to the same species. Darwin has given 
 much attention to this characteristic and has spoken of it in 
 several of his works. He several times brought ants of the 
 same species (F. rufa) from one ant hill to another, which, 
 as it seemed, was inhabited by tens of thousands of ants, 
 yet the strangers were at once recognised and killed. Even 
 the sprinkling of ants with assafoetida does not prevent them 
 from being recognised by their comrades, so that not smell, 
 but an unknown something, perhaps a sign or pass word, 
 must serve as a means of recognition. (See Darwin's 
 " Variations of Animals and Plants," 1868, ii. p. 333.) 
 
 Huber (loc. cz.) remarks that ants from the same nest 
 recognised and caressed each other with their feelers after 
 four months' separation. If ants from two heaps of the 
 same species meet in battle, the ants of the same side will 
 seize each other in the general whirl, but recognise each 
 other as soon as their antennas have touched and mutually 
 apologise. 
 
 Forel observed some distrust at first after a long separa- 
 tion, but it did not last long, and soon gave way to mutual 
 understanding and mutual help. He once put a single ant 
 from an old nest on the dome of a new, which he had made 
 about a month before as an offshoot of the old. It was at 
 once surrounded by more than fifty ants, which tapped it 
 on all sides in so pressing a manner that it did not know 
 which way to turn. But after the questioners, clearly satis- 
 fied with their investigation, had departed, others came up 
 which repeated the same manoeuvre, and so on without cessa- 
 tion. The strength of the poor victim of curiosity appeared 
 about to give way when suddenly an ant, touched with com- 
 passion, offered it its mandibles, and when the former 
 quickly seized them and rolled itself round, tried to carry it 
 inside the nest. But the crowds of the curious blocked up 
 the entrances and the worries and tappings of the poor
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 169 
 
 creature did not cease. One shameless ant even tried to 
 pull it away from its bearer, until the latter at length 
 reached a little stopped-up hole and attained its object. 
 
 In an experiment made by Forel, Amazons recognized 
 their slaves almost instantaneously after a four months' 
 separation. But after a year, according to his experiments, 
 such recognition no longer took place, and this is the more 
 likely as the life of an ant seldom lasts more than a year, 
 and after such a lapse of time the nest, therefore, is occupied 
 by new inmates. Yet "VV. M. R. (loc. cit.) had ants in his 
 possession which attained to an age of from two to three years. 
 This was especially the case with queens. The same ob- 
 server had the opportunity of establishing recognition 
 between friend and enemy after a separation of thirteen 
 months. The friend was recognised and welcomed, but the 
 enemy was driven away. Lubbock also (loc. cit.) proved 
 that recognition took place after a separation lasting more 
 than a year, and that individuals lived for from three to 
 four years.
 
 170 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WARS AND BATTLES. 
 
 wars and battles of the ants are sometimes waged 
 j_ between different nests or different colonies of the 
 same species, and sometimes between distinct species and 
 genera. They are also murderous in a sense in which the 
 slave hunts, aimed at a single object, are not, as a rule, and 
 the slain, wounded and maimed are found in numbers no 
 smaller than those in the bloodiest wars of men. The irri- 
 tation of battle also is not less than the similar irritation in 
 human struggles, and all the wild passions of human nature, 
 such as lust of blood and of slaughter, cruelty, etc., appear 
 on such occasions to be as roused and as real in the little 
 ant as in the " crown of creation." The warriors sometimes 
 become intoxicated with the heat of battle, until at last they 
 are so mad that they forget all prudence and often sacrifice 
 or permit themselves to be killed in quite a useless way. In 
 such case infuriated warriors can generally only be pacified 
 by a number of their comrades holding them by the legs and 
 stroking them with the feelers until the fit of rage has passed 
 over. An observation of this kind among the Amazons has 
 already been mentioned. 
 
 Hauhart of Bale (" Scientific Journal of the Scholars of 
 the Bale High School, III., 1825, No. 2) observed a regular 
 battle between the black garden ants (F. nigrd) and the small 
 black ants (F. fused), and described it as follows : 
 
 The fusca had two nests and the nigra five small ones close 
 together, twelve yards apart. At Whitsuntide at 10 o'clock 
 in the morning a great movement was seen among the fuscce. 
 They marched out against the nigrce in long oblique lines of 
 battle, with two separate troops on the advanced left wing 
 and three on the right at some distance. The numerous 
 black ants arranged themselves in a rather deeper order of 
 battle, also with two separate wings. The armies grappled
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 171 
 
 and fought at first with closed ranks, then divided into duels, 
 while the wings stood opposite each other doing nothing. 
 The struggle went on with embittered rage, feelers and legs 
 were torn off, the opponents bit each other without mercy, 
 and while the black ants helped each other and defended or 
 carried away their wounded, thefusca left theirs to their 
 fate. When the observer visited the field of battle two 
 hours later the fuscte had been vanquished and had dis- 
 appeared ; here and there only was a fugitive to be seen. 
 The black ants had taken possession of the nests of their 
 enemies, and were running eagerly about, to and fro, between 
 these and their own nests. The excitement and fury during 
 the struggle were so great that if any of the fighters were 
 taken up they ran over the hand without biting and did not 
 touch sugar laid before them. 
 
 Here for the most accurate and detailed accounts we must 
 again thank Forel, who observed battles brought about both 
 artificially and naturally between ants of the same and also of 
 different species. Battles between ants of the same species 
 often end with a lasting alliance, especially when the number of 
 the workers on both sides is comparatively small. The wise 
 little animals under such circumstances discover, much more 
 quickly and better than men, that they can only destroy each 
 other by fighting, while union would benefit both parties. 
 Sometimes they drive each other out of their nests in a quite 
 friendly way. Forel laid on a table a piece of bark with a 
 nest of the gentle Leptothorax acervorum, and then put on it 
 the contents of another nest of the same species. The last 
 comers were by far the more numerous and soon possessed 
 themselves of the nest, driving out the inmates. But the 
 latter did not know whither to go, and turned back again. 
 They were then seized by their opponents one after the other, 
 carried away as far as possible from the nest and there put 
 down. The oftener they came back the further were they 
 can-ied away. One of the carriers arrived in this fashion at 
 the edge of the table, and after it had by means of its feelers 
 convinced itself that it had reached the end of the world, 
 mercilessly let its burden drop into the fathomless abyss. 
 It waited a moment to see if it had attained its object and 
 then turned back to the nest. Forel picked up the ant 
 which had fallen on the floor, and put it down right in front 
 of the returning ant. The latter repeated the same
 
 172 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 manoeuvre as at first, only stretching its neck further over 
 the edge of the table. He several times reiterated hi& 
 experiment and always with the same result. Later the 
 two colonies were shut up together in a glass case and 
 gradually learned to agree. 
 
 On the 7th of April, 18C9, a battle at first artificially 
 brought about between two colonies of F. pratensis was pre- 
 ceded by a number of skirmishes until towards nine o'clock 
 a regular general battle began, which went on for a whole 
 hour, on the same spot. They fought in large compact 
 masses, which were always freshly directed towards a point 
 midway between the two armies. Side attacks, as with the 
 sanguined, did not take place. Chains of from four to ten 
 ants which had clung together and covered each other with 
 poison were not unusual. Forel often saw, as did Huber, 
 warriors of the same side furiously attacking each other, but 
 they at once recognised and let each other go. Prisoners 
 were dragged into the hostile nest and there killed. Mean- 
 while work within the nest suffered no interruption, and all 
 the labors of peace went quietly on in the midst of war. 
 Towards ten o'clock the van of one army had broken through 
 that of the other, but the vanquished set themselves against 
 a little wall which served as a natural line of defence, and 
 which was made of dry twigs, leaves and plants. At the same 
 time a great movement was perceptible on the dome of the 
 nest of the beaten ants, and some of the ants were working 
 busily away with their antenna?. Immediately afterwards 
 new masses of warriors came out of all the openings of the 
 nest and hurried to the aid of their vanquished comrades. 
 But the enemy, which meanwhile had been carrying off 
 hundreds of prisoners, also made fresh efforts and the battle 
 reached its highest point. The field of battle was covered 
 with warriors thickly pressed together, yet the original lines 
 of battle could still be distinguished. Towards eleven 
 o'clock the original victors were flung back, and pursued 
 first to the original field of battle and then as far as their 
 nest. The conquerors were here obliged to halt, for a new 
 storm had gathered against them in the shape of a third 
 colony of pratensis brought there by Forel. They fought 
 with success also against this new foe, but were finally so tired 
 that towards three o'clock in the afternoon they drew back 
 and rested. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of slain covered
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 173 
 
 the field of battle ; the most frequent sight was that of two 
 dead enemies firmly locked together and with their mandibles 
 biting into each other. 
 
 On the following day there were only individual collisions , 
 but on the third day Forel reawoke the struggle, which 
 ended two days later with the destruction of the last assail- 
 ants, although the victors had also heavy losses. Forel 
 often saw one of them maimed by a single bite through head 
 or thorax from a larger opponent. 
 
 The battles of these same ants with the Tetramorium 
 ccespitum (turf ants) one of the strongest and most war-like 
 species belonging to the genus Myrmica are very frequent and 
 violent ; poison and sting therein play chief part, while with 
 the giant ants (Camponotus herculaneus) terrible mutilations 
 made by the mandibles are the rule. The latter ants also 
 give peculiar alarm signals at the beginning of the fight. 
 They not only touch each other very rapidly and vigorously 
 with their feelers, but also strike the ground or the wood of 
 the tree in which is their nest so sharply and quickly with 
 their abdomens that an audible noise is made. All the 
 species of Camponotus do the same. They also mutually 
 assist each other, and this is usually fatal to the ant which 
 has been seized by several of them. 
 
 The otherwise more blood-thirsty sanguineos are less 
 quarrelsome with one another. Forel tried to incite one colony 
 of these against another by throwing down between them a 
 number of pratensis pupae. But each side busied itself with 
 the costly harvest without injuring the other ; only here 
 and there did little bickerings break out, and a few were 
 dragged to the hostile nest. The sense of the little creatures 
 shamed the tempter ! In another case the experiment 
 resulted in an alliance. Only the Amazons from different 
 nests would never form alliances, but fought to the utter- 
 most. 
 
 Between different species war to the knife is the general 
 rule. While battle between members of the same species is 
 at first brought about with difficulty and becomes gradually 
 more vigorous, it breaks out at once decisively and bitterly 
 between different species. Every energy is set upon 
 destroying the opposing party. Alliances scarcely ever take 
 place, and are quite impracticable between distinct genera 
 and species. On the other hand truces occur, when both
 
 174 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 sides are exhausted by protracted struggle. Forel observed 
 two neighboring nests of the sanguine ants and the 
 pratenses which every spring carried on severe battles, 
 lasting for a whole day at a time, without either being able 
 to win supremacy. After a few days, and when the sur- 
 rounding ground was covered with the fallen, the affair 
 ended with a truce, which lasted for the rest of the fine 
 weather. A neutral territory was marked out between the 
 two nests, which was not to be infringed by either party. 
 But if one or several ants were placed on the hostile nest 
 bitter war again broke out. 
 
 On the 17th of April, 1870, Forel placed a handful of 
 black pratenses on a nest of the same species, but of a rather 
 lighter variety or sub-species. A most infuriated battle 
 followed from which only four or five of the black ants 
 escaped. The rest were killed in an hour's space. 
 
 On the 12th of May, 1871, Forel saw a fight between the 
 large brown Myrmica sQabrinodis lobicornoides and a small 
 Myrmica scabrinodis of a yellow brown shade. The battle 
 began by the more numerous small ants taking prisoner 
 some of the large ones which had approached their nest. 
 Fugitives carried the alarming news to the nest of the latter 
 and a general battle was the result. The large ants ad- 
 vancing in masses quickly broke through the order of battle 
 of the small, freed the prisoners and put their enemies to 
 flight, But the latter hid themselves in the unevennesses of 
 the ground in the depths of which was their nest, and sought 
 thence to do as much harm as possible to their foes. Forel 
 saw one of the large ants seized by three of the smaller, 
 and pulled into the depth of the nest through a small hole. 
 The small ones taken prisoner by the large were killed or 
 dragged half dead to the nest, the large ones making so 
 much noise with their stings and mandibles that Forel could 
 hear the crackling against the hard and ribbed thorax of their 
 enemies. The army of the large ants remained for a mo- 
 ment on the field of victory while they tried to penetrate 
 through the nest holes of the small. But the latter had so 
 well stopped up their entrances that the attempt did not 
 succeed. The whole battle had only lasted for a quarter of 
 an hour. 
 
 One clay Forel put two handfuls of pratenses of two 
 different sub-species or varieties before a strong nest of
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 175 
 
 ntfibarbis. They were beaten back by the latter, but had 
 scarcely escaped their jaws before they attacked each other 
 most furiously. 
 
 The powerful Camponolus species have a peculiar method 
 of fighting which enables them to face the Amazons. They 
 raise themselves as high as possible on their hind legs, so as 
 to prevent any seizure of the back, and hold their open jaws 
 towards their enemy, bending their antennae back. At the 
 same time they curve the abdomen so as to be able to inject 
 poison into the wound made. None the less many were 
 killed by a few Amazons which Forel set against some of 
 the C. ligniperdus, and he observed that some were regularly 
 decapitated. At last a kind of truce was made until Forel 
 brought some new ligniperdi which killed all the Amazons 
 and allied themselves with those of their own race. 
 
 The F. exsecta or pressilabris also fights in a peculiar 
 way, which is due to care of their small and very tender 
 bodies. It avoids all single combats and always fights in 
 closed ranks. Only when it thinks victory secure does it 
 spring on its enemy's back. But its chief strength lies in 
 the fact that many together always attack a foe. They 
 nail down their opponent by seizing its legs and holding 
 them firmly to the ground, while a comrade springs on the 
 back of the defenceless creature and tries to bite through its 
 neck. But if threatened the holders sometimes take flight, 
 and so it happens that in battles between the ersectae and 
 the much stronger pratenses not a few of the latter are seen 
 running about with a small enemy clutching their shoulders, 
 and making violent efforts to tear the neck of its foe. If 
 the bearer is then seized with cramp, the nervous cord has 
 been injured. On the other hand if an exsecta is seized by 
 the back by a pratensis it is at once lost. 
 
 The tactics of the turf ants resemble those of the exsectce, 
 three or four of them seizing an opponent and pulling off 
 his legs. In similar fashion the attack of the Lasius species 
 is chiefly directed against the legs of its enemies, three, 
 four or five uniting in the effort. They understand barri- 
 cade-fighting particularly well in their large well-built 
 dwellings, and if it comes to the worst fly by subterranean 
 passages. They are feared by most ants on account of their 
 numerical superiority. Forel one day poured the contents 
 of ten nests of pratenses in front of a tree trunk inhabited
 
 176 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 by Lasius fuliginosus (jet ant). The siege at once began ; 
 but the jet ants called in help from the nests connected with 
 their colony, and thick black columns were at once seen- 
 coming out from the surrounding trees. The pratenses were 
 obliged to fly, and left behind them a mass of dead as well 
 as their pupae, which last were carried off by the victors to 
 their nests to be eaten. 
 
 Lasius niger, the black garden ant, a very wide-spread 
 species, often fights with varying results with cocspitum, 
 fusca, flavus, sanguinea, different Myrmica species, etc. Forel 
 one day saw thousands of them besieging a nest of the 
 rufibarbis without any definite result arising on either side. 
 Huber observed a battle between two nests of the Lasius 
 flavus (yellow ant) which stole each others' plant-lice. 
 
 McCook (loc. cit., 29 Jan., 1878) saw a battle between 
 two nests of the Tetramoriwn ccespitum lasting for nearly 
 three weeks, which took place near a church standing 
 between Broad Street and Penn Square in Philadelphia. 
 He also established the fact that in such a fight friend and 
 foe recognise each other with absolute certainty after pom- 
 munication by their feelers, however great may be the whirl 
 or confusion of the struggle, and although on investigation 
 of different warriors no difference is perceptible. According 
 to his recorded observation the reason of this striking fact 
 lies in the sense of smell among the T. ceespitum, while 
 similar experiments with Camp. Pennsyl. yielded quite con- 
 trary results. Further, individuals of the before-mentioned 
 Pennsylvanian mound-building ants were treated as enemies 
 on their return home after McCook had dipped them only 
 once in water, and here the momentary loss of their specific 
 smell can clearly alone be in fault. Strange to say, the ants 
 thus treated offered no resistance to the assaults of their 
 friends, as though they were conscious of their involuntary 
 mistake. 
 
 The most formidable of all the European ants is, accord- 
 ing to Forel, the rather rare Myrmica, or Myrmica rubida, 
 for it knows how to make special use of its sting and can 
 render itself very unpleasant even to men. Its sting is 
 almost more powerful than that of a wasp. Forel saw the 
 rubidce kill a whole sackful of pratenses in less than an hour 
 without losing one of their number. An Amazon which 
 attacked a rubida was killed in a few moments. A handful
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 177 
 
 of rulida which he placed in the midst of a nest of the rufa 
 held possession of the dome and kept in check the countless 
 swarms of their enemies which did not venture to climb it. 
 Forel never saw them draw back in a fight. 
 
 The Myrmica scabrinodis is not very warlike but is all the 
 more thievish. It steals its booty right out the nests of its 
 enemies, being better guarded against punishment than other 
 species by its hard, "leather-like coat of mail. Forel saw a 
 scabrinodis on the dome of a rufibarbis nest first pretend to 
 be dead, and then quickly steal off with the body of an 
 insect which a rufibarbis had brought up and had let go for 
 a moment. It is constantly at war with the turf ants and 
 generally keeps the upper hand. 
 
 That the Attce, or harvesting ants, fight with each other 
 for the sake of plundering their several stores of provisions 
 has already been mentioned above. 
 
 There are also some species which scarcely ever fight, 
 either because of their peaceable nature or because their 
 nests are too small for the array of hostile armies, such as 
 Myrmecina, Leptotkorax, Stenamma, etc. When they are 
 attacked they try to save themselves by flight, and protect 
 themselves by making nests which are as small as possible 
 in very concealed and little frequented places. 
 
 The genus Pheidole,. lastly, demands very special mention, 
 for it is almost the only one among European ants which 
 has that special class of neuters usually called soldiers. In 
 Asia, Africa, and America this genus is much more widely 
 spread than in Europe. 
 
 These soldiers, which are distinguished from their sisters 
 by an enormously large head and very powerful mandibles, 
 play just the same part in the ant state as soldiers do among 
 men ; that is, they do not work but only fight and defend 
 their working sisters. Lespes denies this so far as the 
 Pheidole megcicephala (large-headed ants) are concerned a 
 very small, light yellow Myrmica species living in Southern 
 France and Italy, and observed by him ; for he saw the 
 soldiers, which are much larger than the workers proper and 
 which have a head from six to ten times as big, working 
 just like their comrades. On the other hand, Heer (" The 
 House- Ants of Madeira," Zurich, 1852,) observed that the 
 soldiers of Pheidole or (Ecophthora pusilla (found in Spain) 
 when meat and dead insects were supplied as food acted the
 
 178 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 part of butchers, dividing it with their large mandibles into 
 small pieces which the workers carried into the nest. Cocci 
 and a species of beetle lived in their nests. Forel also 
 noticed a special class of soldiers among the Ph. pallid/da, 
 although they marched with the workers and mingled with 
 them. Both are incredibly brave and self-sacrificing. On 
 the other hand the soldiers never take any part in domestic 
 duties, but undertake the defence of the nest and its en- 
 trances against enemies from without. Forel kept a colony 
 of this species captive for a long while, and never saw the 
 soldiers working but only marching about. 
 
 A battle, brought on by Forel, between the Pheidoles and 
 the turf-ants was at first begun very unwillingly on the part 
 of the former, for the latter were far more numerous as 
 well as stronger individually. A large number of Pheidoles 
 were killed and as a rule remained clinging to the legs of 
 their slayers after succumbing to a bite or a sting. But as 
 the soldiers of the Pheidoles gradually came up, the aspect of 
 affairs was altered. They carefully avoided being caught by 
 the legs, and snapped at the backs of their opponents with 
 their powerful mandibles, thus breaking the neck. If this 
 manoeuvre did not succeed and they were forced to fight 
 hand to hand they were frequently overcome. If a turf- 
 ant tried to penetrate into the nest, the soldier or guard at 
 the entrance met it with such powerful blows from its 
 mandibles that it lost its balance and was pulled into 
 the nest by the worker-ants. The latter withdrew more 
 and more from the contest, while the number of soldiers 
 steadily increased, and the decimated enemies were wholly 
 put to flight. 
 
 The fight between one of the soldiers of the Pheidoles and 
 a Crematogaster scutellaris is very comic, the latter chiefly 
 relying on its poison. It lets its abdomen wander over the 
 head of the soldier, which struggles in vain to pull off one 
 of its limbs, and which becomes more and more infuriated 
 at the poison. 
 
 There are soldiers also in the genus Colobopsis, employed 
 always in guarding the small holes of their carefully con- 
 cealed nests, and therefore hardly ever quitting it. In one of 
 these Forel found 450 workers, 65 fertile females, 45 males 
 and 60 soldiers ; in other nests there were comparatively 
 more of the latter.
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 179 
 
 The soldier-class among European ants vanishes in com- 
 parison with those among their relations in non-Euro- 
 pean and tropical countries, wherein they far surpass their 
 European brethren in size and strength. As a striking type 
 of these may be selected a species belonging to the genus 
 Eciton, the South American visiting, driver or foraging ant, 
 whose habits much resemble those of the already described 
 "West African hunting or driver ants. According to Peters 
 (loc. cit. p. 58) these animals come in endless files out of the 
 desert and again disappear thei'ein. On either side of the 
 column, soldiers distinguished by their large heads and jaws 
 run backwards and forwards, keeping the procession in order 
 and on the right road. Their march is checked by nothing, 
 not even by water. They fear nothing and attack the 
 largest and the smallest animals with the greatest courage. 
 The inhabitants are warned of their coming by the arrival of 
 the ant-eating birds (Grallaria and Formicivora). And they 
 are not unwelcome, for they do no harm to plants and 
 destroy all injurious insects, reptiles and mammalia. So 
 when the birds appear, the people quit their dwellings into 
 which the ants enter from all sides. They penetrate every- 
 where, into all holes and corners in floors, walls, and roofs, 
 and the whole house is soon cleared of all the insects in- 
 jurious in the tropics, such as wasps, moths, mosquitos, 
 millipedes, spiders and scorpions, and also of snakes, mice 
 and rats ; nothing escapes them, and this done, often after 
 great losses, their army proceeds on its way. 
 
 An eye-witness, Herr H. Kreplin of Heidemiihl (Station 
 Ducherow) who lived for nearly twenty years in South 
 America as an engineer and had often the opportunity of 
 seeing the driver ants in the virgin forests there, writes as 
 follows to the author on May 10, 1876 : 
 
 " The first sight of this nation on the march is strik- 
 ing to those accustomed to observe as well as to ordinary 
 workers. The train moves forwards in a column of two or 
 three inches in width, with a regularity and order which is 
 astonishing when we consider the length of the procession 
 and the extraordinary difficulties of the forest ground. If 
 the travellers are more closely scanned they will be found to 
 be of different sizes and colors. The ants marching in pro- 
 cession are about 7mm. long and are dark brown. They 
 carry the larvae (pupae ?) of the household fast gripped by
 
 180 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 the stomach, and in spite of this burden move easily and 
 rapidly. On both sides of the train, at about 10mm. dis- 
 tance from each other, stronger ants are to be seen, dis- 
 tinguishable from the others by their foxy color and very 
 thick heads with gigantic mandibles. These " thickheads " 
 play the same role in the ant-state for which they are cast 
 in cultured communities. They look after the order of the 
 march, and allow none to turn either to the right or left. 
 The least confusion in the regularity of the march makes 
 them turn round and put things straight again. While the 
 procession of the brown workers streams on unceasingly with 
 a swarming motion, the " officers," as the natives call these 
 thickheads, run constantly backwards and forwards, ready 
 to take the command on meeting any difficulty. The crossing 
 of streams by these creatures is the most interesting point. 
 If the watercourse be narrow, the thickheads soon find trees, 
 the branches of which meet on the bank on either side, and 
 after a short halt the columns set themselves in motion over 
 these bridges, rearranging themselves in the narrow train 
 with marvellous quickness on reaching the further side. 
 But if no natural bridge be available for the passage, they 
 travel along the bank of the river until they arrive at a 
 flat sandy shore. Each ant now seizes a bit of dry wood, 
 pulls it into the water and mounts thereupon. The hinder 
 rows push the front ones even further out, holding on to the 
 wood with their feet and to their comrades with their jaws. 
 In a short time the water is covered with ants, and when 
 the raft has grown too large to be held together by the 
 small creatures' strength, a part breaks itself off and begins 
 the journey across, while the ants left on the bank busily 
 pull their bits of wood into the water and work at enlarging 
 the ferry-boat until it again breaks. This is repeated as 
 long as an ant remains on shore. I had often heard described 
 this method of crossing rivers, but in the year 1859 I had 
 the opportunity of seeing it for myself at the junction of 
 
 the large River Gaspar (?) which falls into the (?) 
 
 .... I never found the visiting ants seize provisions, 
 although they have often driven me out of my home. But 
 everything which flies and crawls is destined for their prey, 
 and a house visited by them is thoroughly cleansed from all 
 vermin. If they change their marching order for hunting 
 order in the forest the wood becomes lively. All things,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 181 
 
 even snakes, fly before the advancing foe. Just as little 
 have I had the opportunity of establishing the carrying off 
 of stranger larv<e to bring up as workers, although I have 
 been struck with a difference in size and color." 
 
 We have here again to thank the English traveller Bates 
 from whom we have already borrowed the account of the 
 Brazilian Sa-itbas for the most complete accounts of these 
 remarkable creatures." The Sa-ubas are of ten confused with the 
 Ecitons, although their habits are very different and although 
 the two species belong to quite distinct groups of ants. The 
 Indians, who are very careful not to be caught by these 
 foraging-ants when journeying through the woods, call them 
 the Tauocas. Bates learned to distinguish ten distinct species 
 of which eight were before unknown, each species having a 
 special way of marching. In Ega [Brazil, near the 
 Amazon. TR.] the woods swarm with their hosts. An 
 interesting meeting of two armies of Sa-ubas and an Eciton 
 species (E. Canad.) in Guiana near the Sinamari river is 
 described by Var (in Brehm, " Animal Life," IX., p. 269). 
 
 The contrast between soldiers and workers, or workers 
 major and workers minor, as Bates names the two classes, 
 varies much in different species, and is greatest in the 
 species E. hamata, erratica, and vastator, while, among other 
 species (a* E. rapax, E. legionis, etc.) the soldiers work just 
 the same as the ordinary neuters. All the Eciton species 
 are hunting animals, and they all hunt together in large 
 armies, although each species has its own particular method. 
 E. rapax, the soldiers of which are balf-an-inch long, hunts 
 in small troops and marches in small trains through the 
 woods to rob the nest of another ant of the genus Myrniica. 
 Bates often saw the mutilated bodies of the latter dragged 
 away by the robbers. E. legionis also robs the ants of other 
 species, and drags its slain enemies home to devour, after it 
 has divided their bodies into two or more pieces, they being 
 too heavy for a single robber to carry. In dragging their 
 enemies out of their mined passages Bates saw how some 
 dug a shaft, while others stood above to take the dug-out 
 earth from their companions and carry it away far enough 
 to prevent it from rolling again into the shaft. Here we 
 again find that division of labor which appears everywhere 
 to be a principle of work among the industrious ant nation, 
 and has doubtless much contributed to the perfection of 
 
 N
 
 182 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 
 
 their customs and arrangements. On the return of a robber 
 ant army to its dwelling, Bates also observed that the un- 
 laden ants helped their laden comrades to climb a steep 
 wall. 
 
 The most common species are E. hamata and E. drepano- 
 phora, which traverse the forests along the banks of the 
 Amazon in thick columns of countless thousands. The 
 first sign which warns the foot passenger of their approach 
 is the restless fluttering round of a number of ant-eating 
 birds. If he overlooks this sign and goes on for a few steps, 
 he is certain to find himself suddenly seized by thousands of 
 tiny furious creatui-es, biting and stinging as hard as they 
 can. Rapid flight is the only means of salvation, and the 
 ants have to be pulled off the skin one by one, often leaving 
 head and mandibles in the wound. 
 
 All living things, therefore, that are within their reach 
 fly unresistingly out of their way. Unwinged insects, such 
 as spiders, caterpillars, crickets, larva, other ants, etc., have 
 the gravest reasons for escaping ; only the birds and their 
 broods are safer, for the Eciton does not love climbing tall 
 trees. The main column, four to six deep, marches con- 
 stantly forward in a given direction, clearing its road of all 
 living or dead animals as it goes, and sending out from time 
 to time small side columns, which return to the main body 
 after completing their plundering. If a specially good 
 supply of prey is found, as for instance a heap of rotten 
 wood with many insect larvae, a halt is made, and all that 
 is edible is devoured. When they seize wasps' nests, which 
 are sometimes placed on low bushes, they gnaw off the 
 coverings of the larvae, pupze, and new-born wasps, and tear 
 them all in pieces, untroubled by the furious owners flying 
 round them. When the booty is carried off, the various 
 pieces are apportioned according to strength ; the small ants 
 take the smallest and the large the heaviest loads. Some- 
 times two ants combine to carry a large burden. The 
 soldiers, or workers major, with their heavy distorted jaws, 
 alone take no share in this labor. The army never follows 
 a trodden road but marches through the most impenetrable 
 underwood. Bates never saw them turn back, but always 
 on the march, and he failed to find any of their nests. 
 
 One day, at Villa Nuova, Bates saw at a favorable spot 
 one of these columns sixty or seventy yards in length,
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE. 183 
 
 without either vanguard or rearguard. Order was main- 
 tained instead by single ants, running constantly backwards 
 and forwards on both sides of the column, keeping up a kind 
 of mutual understanding. These " officers " were seen to 
 communicate with those marching in rank by touching them 
 with their feelers. When Bates broke the procession or 
 took an ant away the news of the fact reached the end of 
 the army very rapidly and a retreat began. All the small- 
 headed workers carried in their mouths pieces of white crickets 
 whose nests they had plundered. The large-headed ants, 
 whose shining white heads made them easily recognisable, 
 never carried anything, but, as already said, ran outside the 
 procession, like subalterns in a marching regiment and at 
 regular distances from each other. Yet it appeared to 
 Bates as though they were less warlike than their working 
 comrades, and owing to their thick heads and curved man- 
 dibles they were also less active. Perhaps they only act as 
 directors or overseers. Perhaps also as riding horses, if an 
 observation of Bastian (" Travels," 294) quoted by Perty 
 be accurate ; Bastian says that he saw in Siam an army of 
 black ants accompanied by soldiers, and that some of the 
 former now and then left the ranks, sprang on the backs of 
 the much larger soldiers, and trotted up and down the pro- 
 cession on them like officers, after which they again fell into 
 the ranks!?? 
 
 The Ecitons are not always working and marching ; they 
 also take rest and refreshment. They halt on sunny spots 
 in the forest, clean themselves or each other by wiping their 
 antennae with their fore-legs, or drawing their antennas and 
 legs through mouth and mandibles, and then walking slowly 
 about or playing with each other like young lambs or 
 puppies. 
 
 Eciton predator, a small black-red species, very common 
 round Ega, does r.ot hunt in columns but in thick masses, com- 
 posed of myriads of ants, looking like a stream of dark-red 
 liquid. They search every spot on their road most closely for 
 animal food, and tear their victims in pieces in order to 
 cany them away. Their armies often occupy a space of 
 from four to six square yards, and single groups break off 
 from the sides, like the skirmishers of sharpshooters of a 
 human army, returning to the main body when they have 
 obtained their object. 
 
 N2
 
 184 ANTS AND ANT LIFE 
 
 There are some blind or half blind species which avoid 
 light, and when their road leads them over open places they 
 cover it in with remarkable swiftness by building tunnels or 
 galleries of earth. Some, such as E. vastator or E. erratica, 
 march only by these covered ways. Bates was able to 
 follow these roads for many hundred yards, and^they were 
 built in the same way as the covered ways of the Termites, 
 only with the difference that the latter use a gummy saliva 
 for glueing the earth together, while the ants simply heap it 
 up so skilfully that it does not fall, although lacking any 
 kind of mortar. The large-headed ants here act only as 
 soldiers, defending the community against all disturbance 
 from without, as amongst the Termites. When Bates made 
 a breach in the covered ways, the small-headed ants tried 
 to mend it as quickly as possible, while the large-headed 
 ones rushed out menacingly, furiously snapping with their 
 mandibles. The species observed by McCook in North 
 America, such as the Texan cutting ants, the Camponotus 
 Pennsylvannicus, and the mound building ants in the Alleg- 
 hauies belong, according to his observations, to tke soldier 
 species, to those, namely, which keep a standing army. 
 
 The military condition, however, is most perfectly de- 
 veloped among the so-called white ants, or Termites, living 
 in Africa, Southern Asia, South America, and Australia ; 
 these maintain just as numerous and well-disciplined an 
 army as do our large European military powers. Yet their 
 finances do not suffer as much thereby, as do those of 
 human States, nor are their swashbucklers guilty of excesses 
 against the citizens who feed them and whom they ought to 
 defend. Do not be angry, dear reader ! They are only 
 unreasoning creatures, following mere " instinct," and can- 
 not rife to the height of human perfection.
 
 THE TERMITES; OR WHITE ANTS.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TERMITES AT HOME. 
 
 THE Termites are wrongly named ants, for they belong 
 to an entirely different order of the Insecta, the 
 Orthoptei'a, and are related most nearly to our Blattoe or 
 cockroaches. They are three or four times as large as 
 our common black ants, but are unfortunately far less 
 accurately known. Their polity seems to be almost more 
 developed than that of the ants, and their architectural 
 talent is also superior. They raise, in Africa at least, fine 
 buildings of from ten to twenty feet high, out of earth, 
 clay, pieces of plants, stones, etc., fastening together these 
 materials by a kind of gummy saliva. So firm does this 
 make their nests, built in the shape of a cone or of a large 
 haycock, that several men can stand on their surface, and 
 that antelopes and even buffaloes are wont to use them for 
 sentries to look over the wide plains. They do not even 
 break through under the tread of an elephant or the weight 
 of a heavily laden wagon. In Senegal their size and 
 number are often so large that at a distance they resemble 
 human dwellings, the similarly conical huts of the negro- 
 villages, and travellers are often thereby led in a wrong 
 direction. Jobson, in his " History of Gambia," says that 
 many of these heaps are twenty feet high, and that he and 
 his companions often hid behind them when out hunting. 
 At first the buildings are only small, and resemble pyramids 
 scarcely a foot high. Gradually, as the population increases, 
 new and similar hills rise up all round. The partition walls 
 are then broken through, the new dwellings are united to 
 the old, a dome is added, and a symmetrical roof is built 
 over all. This is continually repeated, until the mound 
 of twelve or twenty feet high is made. The outer covering 
 consists of a firm domed vaulted layer of clay, which is
 
 188 THE TERMITES. 
 
 exceeding strong, so as to withstand injuries from weather, 
 attacks of enemies, and other accidents. 
 
 The outer forms of the Termites' hills vary in different 
 species. While most are conical, others resemble blunted 
 pillars or giant fungi, the latter having domed roofs, over- 
 hanging five centimetres all round, and resting on a tall 
 cylindrical support four or five feet high. In places subject 
 to great and regular inundations, the Termites' nests are 
 found barrel-shaped and built on the gnarled branches of 
 strong trees, with tubular passages running down the trunks 
 to the ground. Some species live in decayed trees, others 
 subterraneously. 
 
 The ground round each Termites' nest is perforated for 
 a considerable distance with tunnels as much as twelve inches 
 wide, so as to keep up circulation and communication among 
 the inhabitants. There is also a well-organised system of 
 surface and subterranean canals and drains, so as to protect 
 the building from the effects of the waterspout-like torrents 
 of rain common in the tropics. % 
 
 According to Bastian (" The Nations of Eastern Asia," 
 II., p. 293) the Termites' towns of Burmah and the neigh- 
 boring countries are as high as a man, and often resemble a 
 regular castle, with pinnacles and towers, while others again 
 are simple massive tumuli or mounds. They seemed to 
 him to be generally built round a decayed tree trunk. 
 
 If we compare the size and the extent of these buildings 
 with the size of the builders, every work of man sinks into 
 insignificance. A pyramid, on the same scale, would have to 
 reach the enormous height of nearly 3,000 feet, and a sub- 
 terranean passage, similar to a Termites' tunnel, would have 
 a diameter of 300 feet. Yet we marvel at the Roman 
 cloacas or the American aqueducts because a man can stand 
 upright or sit on horseback therein. 
 
 The astonishment felt at the capabilities of these creatures 
 which Blanchard (" Rapport sur les Travaux Scientifiques 
 des D^partements en 1868") calls a scourge of the inhabitants 
 of the countries in which they live but one of the wonders 
 of creation for students of nature becomes even greater 
 when we investigate the interior of the hills which serve as 
 their dwellings, about which unfortunately we have only as 
 yet very imperfect information. These internal arrange- 
 ments are so various and so complicated that pages of
 
 THE TERMITES. 189 
 
 description might be written thereupon. There are myriads 
 of rooms, cells, nurseries, provision chambers, guard-rooms, 
 passages, corridors, vaults, bridges, subterranean streets 
 and canals, tunnels, arched ways, steps, smooth inclines, 
 domes, etc., etc., all arranged on a definite, coherent, and 
 well-considered plan. In the middle of the building, 
 sheltered as far as possible from outside dangers, lies the 
 stately royal dwelling, resembling an arched oven, in which 
 the royal pair reside, or rather are imprisoned, for the 
 entrances and outlets are so small that although the workers 
 on service can pass easily in and out, the queen cannot, for 
 during the egg-laying her body swells out to an enormous 
 size, two or three thousand times the size and weight of an 
 ordinary worker. The queen, therefore, never leaves her 
 dwelling and dies therein. Round the palace which is at 
 first small, but is later enlarged in proportion as the queen 
 increases in size until it is at least a yard long and half a 
 yard high lie the nurseries, or cells for the eggs and larvae ; 
 next these the servants' rooms, or cells for the workers 
 which wait on the queen ; then special chambers for the 
 soldiers on guard, and, between these, numerous store-rooms, 
 filled with gums, resins, dried plant-juices, meal, seeds, fruits, 
 worked- up wood, etc. According to Bettziech-Beta, there is 
 always in the midst of the nest a large common room, which 
 is used either for popular assemblies or as the meeting and 
 starting point of the countless passages and chambers of the 
 nest. Others are of the opinion that this space serves for 
 purposes of ventilation. 
 
 While the magazines, or storerooms, are built of clay, the 
 nursery-cells are entirely made of woody material, fastened 
 together with gum. In these are the eggs, and the newly 
 hatched animals or larvae, which are fed by the workers 
 until they are grown large and can help themselves. These 
 nursery-cells lie all round the royal cell, and as near to it 
 as possible, so that the eggs can be easily and quickly carried 
 into them, and their number is increased in proportion as 
 the queen enlarges and lays more eggs. The servants' 
 rooms are also increased as the care of the queen and the 
 distribution of the eggs in the nurseries demands more and 
 more service. Since, as already mentioned, the royal cell 
 itself has to be enlarged, and as for this purpose the sur- 
 rounding rooms have to be continually broken down and
 
 190 THE TERMITES. 
 
 rebuilt further off, a constant feverish activity prevails in the 
 interior of the nest, and all tasks are performed with won- 
 derful acuteness, regularity, and prudence. 
 
 Above and below the royal cell are the rooms of the 
 workers and soldiers which are specially charged with the 
 care and defence of the royal pair. They communicate 
 with each other, as well as with the nursery-cells and store- 
 rooms, by means of galleries and passages which, as already 
 said, open into the common room in the middle under the 
 dome. This room is surrounded by high, boldly projected 
 arched ways, which lose themselves further out in the walls 
 of the countless rooms and galleries. Many roofs outside 
 and in protect this room and the surrounding chambers from 
 rain, which, as already said, is drained away by countless 
 subterranean canals, made of clay and of a diameter of ten 
 or twelve centimetres. There are also, under the layer of 
 clay covering the whole building, broad spirally winding 
 passages running from below to the highest points, which 
 communicate with the passages of the interior, and apparently, 
 as they mainly consist of smooth inclines, serve for carrying 
 provisions to the higher parts of the nest. 
 
 It is exceptionally difficult to investigate accurately the 
 ulterior of a Termites' nest, owing to the interdependence 
 of the several parts the destruction of one room, arch, or 
 passage causing the breaking down of many ; added to this, 
 the energetic resistance of the Termites' soldiers, armed 
 with very sharp and strong mandibles, puts great obstacles 
 in the way of the observer. " They fight," says the English 
 traveller Smeathman, the distinguished Termites' observer, 
 to whom we owe the best and fullest information upon these 
 creatures, " They fight to the last man, and they defend so 
 energetically every inch of their property that they often 
 drive away the unshod negroes, while the blood of the 
 European runs through his stockings. We were never able 
 to study the interior of a nest in peace, for while the soldiers 
 attacked us, the workers stopped up as quickly as possible 
 the rooms and passages laid open. They do this especially 
 in the neighborhood of the royal dwelling, for which they 
 show the greatest care, and that so cleverly that from out- 
 side it only looks like a formless heap of clay and cannot be 
 distinguished from its surroundings. Nevertheless it is not 
 hard to find, partly from its situation in the midst of the
 
 THE TERMITES. 191 
 
 building, and partly because it is surrounded by great crowds 
 of workers and soldiers, willing to risk their lives in its 
 defence. The interior also, in addition to the royal pair, is 
 found filled with hundreds of the workers serving the latter. 
 These faithful servants do not desert their sovereigns even 
 in utmost need and peril. For when I," says Smeathman, 
 " took out such a royal dwelling and kept it in a large glass 
 vessel, all the servants busied themselves with the greatest 
 care about their sovereigns, and I saw some of them engaged 
 at the head of the queen as though they were giving her 
 something. They then took away from her abdomen the 
 eggs laid by her, and carried them carefully into some 
 unbroken parts of the building, or between scraps of clay as 
 well as they could." 
 
 Life in such a nest, and especially the remarkable division 
 of labor between workers and soldiers, can best be observed 
 by making a sudden attack on the mound. Smeathman 
 and other observers, such as Forskal, Konig, Sparman, etc., 
 say that if a hole is made from outside in a Termites' hill 
 with a strong hoe or axe the first thing that catches our 
 attention is the behavior of the soldiers. Immediately after 
 the blow a single soldier (perhaps a general or one of the 
 higher staff officers ?) appears in the breach, and seems to 
 seek for the cause of the injury and the nature of the foe. 
 He then withdraws into the interior, and gives a signal of 
 alarm, whereat in the shortest possible time, as quickly as 
 the size of the hole permits, masses of soldiers pour out. 
 It is difficult to describe the fury with which these warlike 
 insects fight. In their eagerness to drive back the enemy 
 they often fall down the sides of the mound, but 
 they soon recover themselves and bite at everything that 
 comes in their way. This snapping, together with the 
 striking of their mandibles against the building, make a 
 crackling or tremulous noise, rather sharper and quicker than 
 the ticking of a watch, which can be heard at a distance 
 of several feet^ During the attack they are in the most 
 active movement and excitement. If they succeed in reaching 
 any part of the human body they instantly inflict a rather 
 painful wound, and a spot of blood more than an inch in 
 size appears on the stocking. Their curved mandibles meet 
 at the first bite, and do not loose their hold even when the 
 creature's body is torn off bit by bit. On the other hand,
 
 192 THE TERMITES. 
 
 if the assailant witkdraws beyond their reach and inflicts no 
 further injury, they retire within their dwelling in the course 
 of half-an-hour, as though they had come to the conclusion 
 that the enemy who had done the mischief had fled. 
 Scarcely have the soldiers disappeared when crowds of workers 
 appear in the breach, each with a quantity of ready-made 
 mortar in its mouth. As soon as they arrive they stick this 
 mortar round the open place, and direct the whole operation 
 with such swiftness and facility that in spite of their great 
 number they never hinder each other, nor are obliged to 
 stop. During this spectacle of apparent restlessness and 
 confusion the observer is agreeably surprised to see arising 
 a regular wall, filling up the gap. During the time that 
 the workers are thus busied the soldiers remain within the 
 nest, with the exception of a few, which walk about appa- 
 rently idly, never touching the mortar, among the hundreds 
 and thousands of workers. Nevertheless one of them stands 
 on guard close to the wall which is being built. It turns 
 gently each way in turn, lifting its head at intervals of one 
 or two minutes to strike the building with its heavy man- 
 dibles, making the before-mentioned crackling noise. This 
 signal is immediately answered by a loud rustling from the 
 interior of the nest and from all the subterranean passages 
 and holes. There is no doubt that this noise arises from the 
 workers, for as often as the sign is given they work with 
 increased energy and speed. A renewal of the attack 
 instantaneously changes the scene. " At the first stroke," 
 says Smeathman, " the workers run into the many tunnels 
 and passages which run through the building, and this 
 happens so quickly that they seem regularly to vanish. In 
 a few seconds they are all gone, and in their stead appear 
 the soldiers once more, as numerous and as pugna- 
 cious as before. If they find no enemy, they turn back 
 slowly into the interior of the hill, and immediately the 
 mortar-laden workers again appear, and among them a few 
 soldiers, which behave just as on the first occasion. So one 
 can have the pleasure of seeing them work and fight in turn, 
 as often as one chooses ; and it will be found each time that 
 one set never fight, and the other never work, however great 
 the need may be." 
 
 Quatrefages (" Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste," II., p. 405) 
 also never saw the soldiers working, but only acting as leaders
 
 THE TERMITES. 193 
 
 or overseers. Fritz Muller also who lately published some 
 interesting observations on South American Termites, 
 especially on the species named by him the Termes Lespesi, 
 and on the round nests built in trees by some species 
 describes things as happening just in the way related by 
 Smeathman. If 'a piece of the nest is broken off, the 
 workers withdraw from the uncovered passages, while the 
 soldiers appear in large numbers in their place, and run 
 hither and thither, continually touching each other with 
 their feelers. After some time the workers return and 
 eagerly toil at stopping up the openings, partly with earth, 
 partly with their own excrement. Meanwhile the soldiers 
 have withdrawn into the interior, with the exception of a 
 few which appear to overlook and encourage the workers. 
 If a grass-stalk is held in the uncovered passages of a 
 Termites' hill, as the natives do for the sake of catching 
 them, the soldiers will bite it and will let themselves be 
 pulled out thereby. 
 
 If the Termites excel in building nests, they excel yet 
 more in making roads and bridges, for their proceedings here 
 really touch the fabulous. All their roads are subterranean 
 or covered, for they either shun the light or else seek thus 
 to withdraw themselves from the eyes of their numerous 
 enemies. Perhaps also they wish to escape from the 
 burning rays of the sun. " Wherever they go," says Dr. 
 A. Hagen (" On the Habits and Distribution of Termites," 
 1852), " and however far it may be, they first build a viaduct, 
 a tunnel as thick as a quill pen, made out of clay, smooth 
 inside and more or less rough outside. It is wonderful how 
 rapidly their work progresses. Marching in closed ranks, 
 each worker brings to the proper place a little pellet of earth 
 mixed with saliva, secreted by its large glands. Its strong 
 head seems to serve as trowel and hammer. All observers 
 agree that the tunnels seem to grow before their eyes, almost 
 imperceptibly, and Forskal relates that the Termites watched 
 by him in Egypt built two inches of a tunnel in an hour, 
 and three yards during the night. The little crowd toil 
 without ceasing at the enlargement of their work." In order 
 that the labor may be continual, troops of workers apparently 
 relieve each other. When it is practicable they tunnel 
 beneath the earth, but can work quite as well in the open 
 when circumstances demand it. If for instance they come
 
 194 THE TERMITES. 
 
 across a rock which they cannot perforate, when they are 
 making an underground road, they build a tubular passage 
 over it. They can even carry their viaducts through 
 the air, and that in such bold arches that it is difficult to 
 understand how they were projected. In order to reach a sack 
 of meal which was well protected below, they broke through 
 the roof of the room in which it was, and built a straight 
 tube from the breach they had made down to the sack. As 
 soon as they tried to carry off their booty to a safe place, they 
 became convinced that it was impossible to pull it up the 
 straight road. In order to meet this difficulty, they adopted 
 the principle of the smooth incline, the use of which we 
 have already seen in the interior of their nests, and built 
 close to the first tube a second, which wound spirally within, 
 like the famous clock-tower of Venice. It was now an easy 
 task to carry their booty up this road and so away. 
 
 " Like clever engineers," says Blanchard (ioc. cit.) " they 
 build tubular bridges to pass from one spot to another, or 
 tubes from one story of a building to the next. In the 
 cellars of the prefecture of La Rochelle (Southern JF ranee) 
 a number of hollow pillars were to be seen, like stout straws, 
 reaching from floor to ceiling." In building they always 
 cling to the principle that the shortest way is the best, and 
 it is marvellous with what certainty they take the straightest 
 road, even underground, to their places of supply. It has 
 been thought that during the night they send out scouts, 
 which search for the road above ground, and by given signals 
 point out the direction to their comrades working beneath. 
 After what we have already seen among ants, and shall see 
 among bees of the habit of sending out scouts, this does not 
 seem wholly improbable. 
 
 It has already been said that their exists round their nests 
 a widespread system of subterranean canals, serving as means 
 of communication between neighboring colonies. These 
 canals are the wider, the nearer they are to the nest itself, 
 where they have often a diameter of half a foot or more, 
 and become narrower as they get further off thus exactly 
 agreeing with the principles of regular road and canal 
 making. 
 
 Let us now throw a rapid glance at the remarkable insect 
 itself ; its housekeeping requires no more especial descrip- 
 tion, as it closely resembles that of the ants already described ,
 
 THE TERMITES. 195 
 
 and only seems more complicated owing to the greater 
 number of differing individuals. Lespes has shown that in 
 the nests of the small Termites' species (Termes lucifugus) 
 found in France, in addition to the larva of males, fertile 
 females, and neuters, and in addition to the workers and 
 soldiers of the latter, there are nymphze of two other kinds ; 
 the smaller with short and the larger with longer wing- 
 rudiments. There are also two kinds of males and of fertile 
 females. The smaller ones appear towards the end of the 
 month of May ; the others, much larger, only in August. 
 Lespes calls the first the minor, the latter the major, kings 
 and queens. The most remarkable are the soldiers, among 
 which Lespes has recognised the barren of both sexes, and of 
 these there is about one to a hundred workers a far better 
 ratio than among men, whose standing armies are often a 
 fiftieth or a thirtieth of the total population. The soldiers 
 have enormously large, hard, and strong heads, almost as 
 big as the rest of their bodies, and these are armed with 
 gigantic and very strong and sharp mandibles, while the 
 heads and mandibles of the non-combatant workers are 
 much smaller and weaker ; the whole body of the latter is 
 also of less size and strength. Their mandibles are suited 
 only for gnawing and grasping, whereas those of the soldiers 
 serve as terrible weapons. The part played by the soldiers 
 in defending the nest has already been mentioned, and they 
 also appear to act as overseers and directors. It was told 
 above how they watched over the repair of the breach. 
 Smeathman saw further one day, as he was passing through 
 a forest in West Africa, a large army of the so-called 
 marching Termites, whose larvae and soldiers are not blind, 
 as in the other species, come out of a hole in the ground, 
 and disappear again into a similar hole at some distance. 
 Their number was very large and they marched with the 
 greatest swiftness in thick ranks of fifteen, mostly workers. 
 Here and there Smeathman saw a soldier marching in the 
 same way, carrying his heavy head with apparent difficulty. 
 One or two feet off the column appeared other soldiers, 
 either standing still or walking up and down as if watching 
 lest any enemy should threaten a surprise. Others had 
 climbed up neighboring plants, looked around, and made the 
 already-mentioned crackling noise, whereupon the whole army 
 replied in like fashion, quickening their steps. Smeathman
 
 196 THE TERMITES. 
 
 watched them for more than an hour without perceiving the 
 least decrease of strength iu the procession. 
 
 The most important personage of the Termites' State is 
 obviously the queen, since on her existence depends the 
 existence of the whole nation. If the royal cell is removed 
 from a Termites' nest, the colony scatters or perishes. On 
 the other hand, the whole of the building can be destroyed 
 without any such result, provided only the royal cell is left 
 standing ; the remainder will be rebuilt. When the queen 
 dies the community would perish, were it not that the wise 
 insects prepare for such an emergency by keeping some 
 reserve-queens. " In each nest, in a little dwelling resembling 
 the royal cell, are two or three expectant queens, which 
 only receive their investiture on the death of the queen- 
 mother, and then begin to provide for the welfare and the 
 increase of the nation " (Hagen, loc. cit.). 
 
 The queen lays in her cell an enormous number of eggs, 
 often as many as 80,000 in twenty-four hours, and these are 
 at once taken away by the serving workers and carried into 
 the surrounding cells. " An endless stream of k workers 
 moves round the floor of the royal cell, carrying the eggs into 
 the nurseries around. To shorten the journey little holes 
 are broken through all round at regular distances, and are 
 used for short cuts by the laden workers. The eggs them- 
 selves, differing according to the size of the species, 
 resembling either powdered sugar or the so-called ant-eggs, 
 are stored in the already-mentioned cells which have been 
 termed lying-in rooms one over another. All kinds of food 
 have been carried into special magazines for the first nourish- 
 ment of the young when hatched, and there are soon repre- 
 sentatives of all stages of development mixed confusedly 
 together ; it is a whirlpool of shapes, forms, and colors, 
 which, however, duly leads to a single species " (Hagen, 
 loc. cit.). 
 
 The wedding flight of the Termites' males and females 
 resembles to a hair that of the ants. Hagen (loc. cit.j, at 
 once accurately and poetically, describes it in the following 
 fashion : 
 
 " Let us place ourselves in a forest spot in the interior of 
 Brazil. Not far from a whispering brook a clearing begins, 
 the thicket opens and hems in a vale covered with under- 
 wood. Here and there several mounds of earth rise foot-
 
 THE TERMITES. 197 
 
 high, turfed above and not unlike gigantic mole hills. A 
 pleasant resting-place for the weary traveller, cared for by 
 heaven, for the end of his journey is yet distant and the 
 sun already near the horizon. A thick dark cloud floats slowly 
 overhead and renders the close evening yet more sultry. 
 The rainy season, the weary winter of the tropics, is at hand. 
 The staff is already seized to hurry with freshened energy 
 to the hospitable hearth, when the parting glance thrown by 
 the traveller on the place of repose is suddenly arrested, for 
 ^in uneasy movement begins in the seemingly dead mound of 
 earth. As by enchantment a diagonal slit opens in the 
 midst of the hill. A little insect squeezes itself out, with 
 inch-long winglets closely pressed together : it is followed 
 by two, three, four and more in a row, as many as can pass 
 through the rapidly widening crevice. The baud descends 
 the hill like a silver ribbon, the delicate membrane of the 
 thousands of tiny wings glittering like mother-of-pearl. The 
 procession makes its way exactly against the wind, for thus 
 only can the tender winglets resist the pressure of the air. 
 Swiftly, without ceasing, it continues, new and ever new 
 arrivals strengthen the troop as swiftly as if they were being 
 driven from the nest. Meanwhile more rifts have been 
 made. Similar swarms break forth from these. Like a volcano 
 the tiny mountain seems to discharge its living lava. At 
 the rifts themselves is seen a curious spectacle. Tiny 
 unwinged creatures with uncouth heads and sabre-like 
 curved jaws appear at the openings. Threateningly they 
 swing their large heads, and defend the entrance to their 
 subterranean chambers or hasten the march of their expelled 
 bi-ethren. The wonderful procession lasts for a full hour ; 
 it almost seems as though it were to have no end. At last 
 the ranks become thinner and narrower, here and there are 
 seen delaying laggards, the crevices, walled in by unseen 
 hands, begin to close and the hill soon takes on its wonted 
 appearance. Meanwhile the troop has taken wing ; it 
 gradually rises with uncertain wavering flight higher and 
 higher, and hovers closely pressed together round the tops 
 of the trees. A continual rising and falling of individuals 
 enlivens the scene and changes the whole whirl into that 
 mystic dance which the ephemeral gnats are wont to lead 
 here also on the warmer summer evenings. Gradually the 
 number of the falling insects increases. If we look closely 
 
 o
 
 198 THE TERMITES. 
 
 we always find them in pairs ; a larger one is closely chased 
 by a smaller and seized in its jaws. Then both run round 
 
 r'ckly, and try to pull off their loosely attached wings with 
 ir feet. The picture is also enlivened in another fashion. 
 Countless insectivorous quadrupeds, birds, lizards, snakes, 
 and frogs have gathered. The unarmed Termites, now 
 incapable of flight, are swallowed in masses, and even man 
 finds the food a dainty. If we follow yet further the life- 
 path of these scarcely -born creatures, we shall find few of 
 these myriads alive on the following morning. Those which 
 did not fall a prey to the rage of hunger, wander about 
 shelterless, or are caught by the Termites' workers, now 
 busily creeping about, and are selected for the future heads 
 of families," etc. All the males and fertile females which 
 are not chosen and protected in this way are fated to perish. 
 " The manner," says Smeathman, " in which the workers 
 protect the fortunate elected pair from their numerous 
 enemies, not only on the day of the general massacre but 
 for a long time afterwards, justifies my expression ' election.' 
 The little busy creatures at once shut up their chosen in a 
 room of clay, which at first has only a single small entrance, 
 which lets pass themselves and the soldiers, but not the royal 
 pair. Later on several entrances are made, but always so 
 that the care of defence and nourishment is left to the people 
 alone."
 
 TllE TERMITES. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 TERMITES ABROAD. 
 
 fTIHE Termites show even more intelligence in their activity 
 _jL abroad than in their home or family life, and this 
 activity makes them one of the heaviest and most dreaded 
 of scourges in the countries they inhabit. They are born 
 destroyers, and spare nothing that is not either of stone or 
 iron. Especially are all wooden things subject to their 
 attacks, and their inroads are the more dangerous because 
 they are not visible to the eye, and are, as a rule, first dis- 
 covered when it is too late to hinder them. Either from 
 the desire to remain undiscovered, or from their liking for 
 darkness, they have the remarkable habit of destroying and 
 gnawing everything from within outwards, and of leaving 
 the outside shell standing, so that from the outside appear- 
 ance the dangerous state of the inside is not perceptible. If, 
 for instance, they have destroyed a table or other piece of 
 household furniture, in which they always manage from the 
 ground upwards to hit exactly the places on which the feet 
 of the article rest, the table looks perfectly uninjured out- 
 side, and people are quite astonished when it breaks down 
 under the slightest pressure. The whole inside is eaten 
 away, and only the thinnest shell is left standing. If fruits 
 are lying on the table they also are eaten out from the 
 exact spot on which they rest on the surface of the table. 
 
 In similar fashion things consisting wholly of wood, such 
 as wooden ships, trees, etc., are destroyed by them so that 
 they finally break in without anyone having noticed the 
 mischief. Yet it is said that they go so prudently to work 
 in their destruction that the mainbeams, the sudden break- 
 age of which would threaten the whole building and them- 
 selves therewith, are either spared, or else so fastened 
 together again with a cement made out of clay and earth 
 that their strength is greater than ever ! (?) Hagen also 
 
 O 2
 
 200 THE TERMITES. 
 
 states that they never cut right through the corks which 
 stop up stored bottles of wine, but leave a very thin layer 
 which is sufficient to prevent the outflow of the wine and 
 the consequent destruction of the workers. The same 
 author relates that in order to reach a box of waxlights they 
 made a covered road from the ground up to the second story 
 of a house. 
 
 The Termites were first introduced into Europe by a ship 
 from over the seas, and have made themselves remarkable 
 as the most mischievous enemies of wood in Italy, Spain, 
 France, and the greenhouses in Schonbrunn, near Vienna. 
 In France they have settled along the banks of the Lower 
 Charente, in the towns of Rochefort and la Rochelle, and 
 also in Bordeaux and the vicinity. They were in Rochefort 
 apparently for a long time before they were discovered, 
 until the fall of an uninhabited house in the Rue Royale 
 and the simultaneous enormous dispersion of the Termites 
 in the neighboring houses, in the year 1797, drew on them 
 the eyes of the authorities, unfortunately too late. Closer 
 investigation showed that the whole costly stores of stacked 
 oak for the building of ships of war for the navy had been 
 destroyed ; all the public buildings were infected and the 
 archives of the navy could only be thenceforth protected by 
 keeping them in metal safes. In a school a whole dinner sud- 
 denly sank two stories deep into the cellar, and other buildings 
 threatened to fall. A smith, living in the neighborhood of 
 the docks, suddenly saw his anvil yield under the strokes of 
 his hammer. The wooden block which carried it splintered 
 in pieces, and revealed itself as the dwelling of the Termites. 
 In the year 1820 the ship of war, le Genots, built under 
 Napoleon, had to be broken up, being rendered quite useless 
 by the Termites. The same fate befell an English ship of 
 the line, the " Albion," into which the Termites had pene- 
 trated. 
 
 The Termites apparently came to Schonbrunn in plants 
 from Brazil. They so thoroughly destroyed both the 
 wooden tubs and the beams that in the year 1839 one of the 
 largest greenhouses had to be pulled down. They multiplied 
 rapidly within the greenhouses, at a temperature of 24 R. 
 [30 C., or86 v F. TR], but are now nearly exterminated. 
 The European Termites belong almost exclusively to the 
 already mentioned Termes lucifugus (light avoiding Ter-
 
 THE TERMITES. 201 
 
 mites), on which the detailed observations of Lespes were 
 made, and in whose habits he found many differences from 
 the non-European species. 
 
 According to Blanchard the third part of the plains of the 
 Island of Ceylon is undermined by the Termites. In Upper 
 Egypt they not seldom compel the inhabitants to leave their 
 ruined dwellings and to build a home in a new spot. In the 
 East Indies, Bengal, the southern part of China, Soudan, etc., 
 they are a fearful scourge. In West Africa they level to 
 the ground in a few years the deserted huts of the natives. 
 In the whole of South America, as Humboldt relates, books 
 more than fifty years old are rare, for the Termites have the 
 laudable habit of making passages into the libraries, and 
 obliquely through the rows of books. In the sea-coast 
 towns of Brazil and of the East Indies whole magazines often 
 fall a prey to their destructive energy. Even metal is not 
 secure from the attack of the sour Termites'-acid, and the 
 bores of iron cannon in Ternate [Molucca Isles] are found 
 covered with Termites' roads and are quickly attacked by rust. 
 
 On the Termites of South America the English traveller, 
 Bates who has given us so many interesting details on the 
 ants of that continent has again made a report which 
 contains indeed nothing new, but which deserves to be given 
 here as the 1'ecord of the observations made lately by a 
 trustworthy eye witness : 
 
 " The surface of the Campos " (round Santarem, a town 
 lying on the lower course of the Amazon), says Bates, " is 
 disfigured in all directions by earthy mounds and conical 
 hillocks, the work of many different species of white ants. 
 Some of these structures are five feet high, and formed of 
 particles of earth worked into a material as hard as stone ; 
 others are smaller, and constructed in a looser manner. The 
 ground is everywhere streaked with the narrow covered 
 galleries which are built up by the insects of grains of earth 
 different in color from the surrounding soil, to protect 
 themselves whilst conveying materials with which to build 
 their cities for such the tumuli may be considered or 
 carrying their young from one hillock to another. The same 
 covered ways are spread over all the dead timber, and about 
 the decaying roots of herbage, which serve as food to the 
 white ants. An examination of these tubular passages, or 
 arcades, in any part of the district, or a peep into one of the
 
 202 THE TERMITES. 
 
 tumuli, reveals always a throng of eager, busy creatures. 
 .... White ants are small, pale-colored, soft-bodied 
 insects, having scarcely anything in common with the ants, 
 except their consisting, in each species and family, of several 
 distinct orders of individuals or castes which live together 
 in populous, organised communities. In both there are, 
 besides the males and females, a set of individuals of no 
 fully developed sex, immensely more numerous than their 
 brothers and sisters, whose task is to work and care for the 
 young brood. In true ants this class of the community con- 
 sists of undeveloped females, and when it comprises, as is 
 the case in many species, individuals of different structure, 
 the functions of these do not seem to be rigidly defined. 
 The contrary happens in the Termites, and this, perhaps, 
 shows that the organisation of their communities has reached 
 a higher stage, the division of labor being more complete. 
 The neuters in these wonderful insects are always divided 
 into two classes fighters and workers ; both are blind, and 
 each keeps to its own task, the one to build, make covered 
 roads, nurse the young brood from the egg upwards, take 
 care of the king and queen, who are the progenitors of the 
 whole colony, and secure the exit of the males and females 
 when they acquire wings and fly out to pair and disseminate 
 the race ; the other to defend the community against all 
 comers. Ants and Termites are also widely different in their 
 mode of growth, or, as it is called, metamorphosis. Ants, 
 in their early stage, are footless grubs which, before they 
 reach the adult state, pass through an intermediate quiescent 
 stage (pupa) enclosed in a membrane. Termites, on the 
 contrary, have a similar form when they emerge from the 
 egg to that which they retain throughout life, the chief 
 difference being the gradual acquisition of eyes and wings 
 in the sexual individuals during the later stages of growth. 
 Termites and true ants, in fact, belong to two widely dis- 
 similar orders of insects, and the analogy between them is 
 only a general one of habits. The mode of growth of 
 Termites and the active condition of their younger stages 
 (larva and pupa) make the constitution of their communities 
 much more difficult of comprehension than that of ants ; 
 hence how many castes existed, and what sort of individuals 
 they are composed of, if not males and females, have always 
 been puzzles to naturalists in the absence of direct observa-
 
 THE TERMITES. 203 
 
 tion. What a strange spectacle is offered to us in the 
 organisation of these insect communities ! Nothing analogous 
 occurs among the higher animals. Social instincts exist in 
 many species of mammals and birds, where numerous indi- 
 viduals unite to build common habitations, as we see in the 
 case of weaver-birds and beavers ; but the principle of division 
 of labor, the setting -apart of classes of individuals for 
 certain employments, occurs only in human societies in an 
 advanced state of civilisation. In all the higher animals 
 there are only two orders of individuals as far as bodily 
 structure is concerned, namely, males and females. The 
 wonderful part in the history of the Termites is, that not 
 only is there a rigid division of labor, but nature has given 
 to each class a structure of body adapting it to the kind of 
 labor it has to perform. The males and females form a 
 class apart ; they do no kind of work, but in the course 
 of growth acquire wings to enable them to issue forth 
 and disseminate their kind. The workers and soldiers are 
 wingless, and differ solely in the shape and armature 
 of the head. This member in the laborers is smooth and 
 rounded, the mouth being adapted for the working of the 
 materials in building the hive ; in the soldiers the head is of 
 very large size, and is provided in almost every kind with 
 special organs of offence or defence in the form of horny 
 processes resembling pikes, tridents, and so forth. Some 
 species do not possess these extraordinary projections, but 
 have, in compensation, greatly lengthened jaws, which are 
 shaped in some kinds as sickles, in others as sabres and 
 saws. The course of human events in our day seems, 
 unhappily, to make it more than ever necessary for the 
 citizens of civilised and industrious communities to set apart 
 a numerous armed class for the protection of the rest ; in 
 this nations only do what nature has of old done for the 
 Termites. The soldier Termes, however, has not only the 
 fighting instinct and function ; he is constructed as a soldier, 
 and carries his weapons not in his hand, but growing out of 
 his body. Whenever a colony of Termites is disturbed, the 
 workers are at first the only members of the community 
 seen ; these quickly disappear through the endless ramified 
 galleries of which a Termitarium is composed, and soldiers 
 make their appearance. The observations of Smeathman 
 on the soldiers of a species inhabiting tropical Africa are
 
 204 THE TERMITES. 
 
 often quoted in books on Natural History, and give a very 
 good idea of their habits. I was always amused at the 
 pugnacity displayed, when, in making a hole in the earthy 
 cemented archway of their covered roads, a host of these 
 little fellows mounted the breach to cover the retreat of the 
 workers. The edges of the rupture bristled with their armed 
 heads as the courageous warriors ranged themselves in com- 
 pact line around them. They attacked fiercely any intruding 
 object, and as fast as their front ranks were destroyed, 
 others filled up their places. When the jaws closed in the 
 flesh, they suffered themselves to be torn in pieces rather 
 than loosen their hold. It might be said that this instinct 
 is rather a cause of their ruin than a protection when a 
 colony is attacked by the well-known enemy of Termites, 
 the ant-bear ; but it is the soldiers only which attach them- 
 selves to the long wormlike tongue of this animal, and the 
 workers, on whom the prosperity of the young brood imme- 
 diately depends, are left for the most part unharmed. I 
 always found, on thrusting my finger into a mixed crowd 
 of Termites, that the soldiers only fastened upon it. Thus 
 the fighting caste do in the end serve to protect the species 
 by sacrificing themselves to its good. A family of Termites 
 consists of workers as the majority, of soldiers, and of the king 
 and queen. These are the constant occupants of a com- 
 pleted Termitarium. The royal couple are the father and 
 mother of the colony, and are always kept together closely 
 guarded by a detachment of workers in a large chamber in 
 the very heart of the hive, surrounded by much stronger 
 walls than the other cells. They are wingless, and both 
 immensely larger than the workers and soldiers. The queen, 
 when in her chamber, is always found in a paired condition, 
 her abdomen enormously distended with eggs, which, as fast 
 as they come forth, are conveyed by a relay of workers in 
 their mouths from the royal chamber to the minor cells 
 dispersed throughout the hive. The other members of a 
 Termes family are the winged individuals. These make 
 their appearance only at a certain time of the year, generally 
 in the beginning of the rainy season. It has puzzled 
 naturalists to make out the relationship between the winged 
 Termites and the wingless king and queen. It has also 
 generally been thought that the soldiers and workers are the 
 larvae of the others : an excusable mistake, seeing that they
 
 THE TERMITES. 205 
 
 much resemble larvae. I satisfied myself, after studying 
 the habits of these insects daily for several months, that the 
 winged Termites were males and females in about equal 
 numbers, and that some of them, after shedding their wings 
 and pairing, became kings and queens of new colonies ; 
 also, that the soldiers and workers were individuals which 
 had arrived at their full growth without passing through the 
 same stages as their fertile brothers and sisters. A Termi- 
 tarium, although of different shape, size, texture of materials, 
 and built in different situations, according to the species, is 
 always composed of a vast number of chambers and irregular 
 inter-communicating galleries, built up with particles of 
 earth or separate matter, cemented together by the saliva 
 of the insects. There is no visible mode of ingress or egress, 
 the entrances being connected with covered roads, which are 
 the sole means of communication with the outer world. 
 The structures are prominent objects in all tropical countries. 
 The very large hillocks at Santarem are the work of many 
 distinct species, each of which uses materials differently 
 compacted, and keeps to its own portion of the tumulus. 
 One kind, Termes arenarius, on which these remarks are 
 chiefly founded, makes little conical hillocks of friable 
 structure, a foot or two in height, and is generally the sole 
 occupier. Another kind (Termes exiguus) builds small dome- 
 shaped papery edifices. Many species live on trees, their 
 earthy nests, of all sizes, looking like ugly excrescences on 
 the trunks and branches. Some are wholly subterranean, 
 and others live under the bark, or in the interior of trees ; it 
 is these two latter kinds which get into houses and destroy 
 furniture, books, and clothing. All hires do not contain a 
 queen and her partner. Some are new constructions, and, 
 when taken to pieces, show only a large number of workers 
 occupied in bringing eggs from an old over-stocked Termi- 
 tarium, with a small detachment of soldiers, evidently told 
 off for their protection. A few weeks before the exodus of 
 the winged males and females a complete Termitarium con- 
 tains Termites of all castes, and in all stages of development. 
 On close examination I found the young of each of the four 
 orders of individuals crowded together, and apparently 
 feeding in the same cells. The full-grown workers showed 
 the greatest attention to the young larvae, carrying them in 
 their mouths along the galleries from one cell to another,
 
 206 THE TERMITES. 
 
 but they took no notice of the full-grown ones. It was not 
 possible to distinguish the larvae of the four classes when 
 extremely young, but at an advanced stage it was easy to 
 see which were to become males and females, and which 
 
 workers and soldiers Thus I think I made out that 
 
 the soldier and worker castes are, like the males and females, 
 distinct from the egg ; they are not made so by a difference 
 of food or treatment during their earlier stages, and they 
 never become winged insects. The workers and soldiers 
 feed on decayed wood and other vegetable substances : I 
 could not clearly ascertain what the young fed upon, but 
 they are seen of all sizes, larvae and pupae, huddled together 
 in the same cells, with their heads converging towards the 
 bottom, and I thought I sometimes detected the workers 
 discharging a liquid from their mouths into the cells. The 
 growth of the young family is very rapid, and seems to be 
 completed within the year : the greatest event of Termite 
 life then takes place, namely, the coming of age of the 
 winged males and females, and their exit from the hive. It 
 is curious to watch a Termitarium when this exodus is 
 taking place. The workers are set in the greatest activity, 
 as if they were aware that the very existence of their species 
 depended on the successful emigration and marriages of their 
 brothers and sisters. They clear the way for their bulky but 
 fragile bodies, and bite holes through the outer walls for 
 their escape. The exodus is not completed in one day, but 
 continues until all the males and females have emerged from 
 their pupa integuments and flown away. It takes place on 
 moist close evenings, or on cloudy mornings : they are much 
 attracted by the lights in houses, and fly by myriads into 
 chambers, filling the air with a loud rustling noise, and often 
 falling in such numbers that they extinguish the lamps. 
 Almost as soon as they touch ground they wriggle off their 
 wings, to aid which operation there is a special provision in 
 the structure of the organs, a seam running across near 
 their roots, and dividing the horny nervures. To prove that 
 this singular mutilation was voluntary, on the part of the 
 insects, I repeatedly tried to detach the wings by force, but 
 could never succeed while they were fresh, for they always 
 tore out by the roots. Few escape the innumerable enemies 
 which are on the alert at these times to devour them ; ants, 
 spiders, lizards, toads, bats, and goat-suckers. Tho waste of
 
 THE TERMITES. 207 
 
 life is astonishing. The few that do survive pair and be- 
 come the kings and queens of new colonies. I ascertained 
 this by finding single pairs a few days after the exodus, 
 which I always examined and proved to be males and 
 females, established under a leaf, a clod of earth, or 
 wandering about under the edges of new tumuli. The 
 females are then not gravid. I once found a newly-married 
 pair in a fresh cell tended by a few workers. The office of 
 Termites in these hot countries is to hasten the decomposition 
 of the woody and decaying parts of vegetation. In this 
 they perform what in temperate latitudes is the task of other 
 orders of insects. Many points in their natural history still 
 remain obscure. We have seen that there are males and 
 females, which grow, reach the adult winged state, and pro- 
 pagate their kind like all other insects. Unlike others, 
 however, which are always, each in its own sphere, provided 
 with the means of maintaining their own in the battle of 
 life, these are helpless creatures, which, without external 
 aid, would soon perish, entailing the extinction of their 
 kind. The family to which they belong is therefore provided 
 with other members, not males or females but individuals 
 deprived of the sexual instincts, and so endowed in body 
 and mind that they are adapted and impelled to devote their 
 lives for the good of their species. But I have not explained 
 how these neuter individuals, soldiers and workers, come to 
 be distinct castes. This is still a knotty point, which I could 
 do nothing to solve. Neuter bees and ants are known to be 
 undeveloped females. I thought it a reasonable hypothesis, 
 on account of the total absence of intermediate individuals 
 connecting the two forms, that worker and soldier might be 
 in a similar way female and male whose development had 
 been in some way arrested. A French anatomist, however, 
 M. Lespes, believes to have found by dissection imperfect 
 males and females in each of the castes. The correctness of 
 his observation is doubted by competent judges : if his con- 
 clusion be true, the biology of Termites is indeed a mystery. 
 The different forms of which Lespes and Dr. Hagen speak, 
 I could not find in the species observed by me. I found, 
 however, a species whose soldier class did not differ at all, 
 except in the fighting instinct, from the workers." (?)
 
 THE BEE NATION.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 ROYALTY. 
 
 WE have already seen that the Termites shun the light 
 of day, and must, therefore, be reckoned among 
 the decided " darkies." This is also shown to some 
 extent in their State polity, which, as already said, other- 
 wise much resembles the Ant Republic, but which approaches 
 the monarchical idea by possessing a standing army and 
 having generally only one queen. By this possession of a 
 standing army the Termites' State is rendered more monar- 
 chical than the famous Bee polity, so often regarded as 
 the prototype of a monarchy, or of the rule of an individual ; 
 the latter indeed, as a rule at least, has only one queen, 
 but instead of a standing army, it carries out to the fullest 
 extent the purely republican or democratic principle of 
 universal national arm-bearing, in a fashion that leaves far 
 behind it all human arrangements. But not in this alone, 
 but in all its affairs, the bee State must be characterised 
 as a monarchy with very democratic institutions. It may, 
 indeed, be called a communistic or social- democratical 
 monarchy such as Napoleon III. for a time, while coquet- 
 ting with the working-classes, appears to have had the notion 
 of introducing in France. It may also be called an elective 
 monarchy, for no direct hereditary line is followed, but the 
 queen is in each case chosen by the workers, and selected 
 or rejected as they please. The queen in return, relies 
 wholly upon the workers, or the neuter working bees, of 
 which there are from ten to sixty thousand in a hive, 
 and which, by the possession of their terrible poisoned 
 sting, unite in their own persons the positions of workers 
 and soldiers ; the privileged condition of the non-working, 
 pleasure-loving males, or drones, is only suffered by the 
 workers, as we shall presently see, just so far and for so long 
 as their services are thought necessary. 
 
 On the other hand the monarchical principle is very
 
 212 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 plainly manifested in the fact that the whole life of the 
 hive revolves more or less round the queen ; where she is 
 wanting, dies, or is not succeeded by another, the hive falls 
 into disorder, and in a longer or shorter time infallibly 
 perishes. Single members of the hive, if they scatter, either 
 die or become useless, lazy, vagabonds, and mischievous 
 highwaymen. The monarchical principle of the bee nation 
 is still more strikingly manifested in comparison with the 
 other social insects, in that only one ruler or queen is per- 
 mitted, and that where several accidentally come together 
 the superfluous ones are either killed or are compelled to go 
 out and found new colonies. 
 
 We therefore fiad that the bees, under all circumstances, 
 have but a single queen, and that they obey implicitly the 
 famous maxim of Homer, so often quoted in the interest 
 of the political rule of one : 
 
 " OIIK ayaSov TroXvKoipa.virj, cts /cotparos eWto." 
 (The rule of many is not good; let one be king !) 
 
 Nevertheless we sometimes find that an old and abdicated 
 queen, no longer able to lay any fertilised eggs, is out of 
 mercy suffered to remain for awhile in the hive near her 
 successor, and receives some measure of the bread of charity. 
 Pfarrer Calminius (No. 21 of the " Bee Journal," 1855) ob- 
 served a case in which two queens lived peaceably and well- 
 cared-for near each other on two tables hanging side by side. 
 But these are rare exceptions. The workers generally sting 
 the old useless queens unmercifully to death, or suffocate 
 them by surrounding them closely on all sides. Sometimes 
 they are merely driven out of the hive and perish hopelessly. 
 It is, therefore, impossible to free the bees from the reproach 
 of republican ingratitude, and in this matter practical as 
 is their behavior they are decidedly behind men, who, 
 when they get a new ruler, reckon it a point of honor to 
 provide for the old and surviving one, and for all his cousins 
 and relations into the bargain ! 
 
 The more remarkable, in contrast, is the behavior of the 
 "bees to the real reigning and egg-laying queen, who is 
 always treated with all imaginable love and care, and is 
 constantly followed by a court of young bees which antici- 
 pate all her wishes and needs. Especially is built for her, 
 or rather for her larvae, A dwelling, or cradle, which is large
 
 THE BEE NATION. 213 
 
 and splendid compared with the small and narrow cells of 
 the drones and workers ; this is called the king's or queen's 
 cell, or royal cradle, and is decorated with three-cornered 
 stars, and requires a hundred ^times more wax for its 
 erection than^the ordinary cells, although the wax is of a 
 specially costly substance, difficult to obtain, in the use of 
 which great frugality is otherwise shown by the bees. The 
 young bees divide the wax into thin transparent plates 
 between the somites of their abdomens, and require for this- 
 much food as well as rest and warmth, so that they are only 
 found in the interior of the nest and scarcely ever quit it. 
 
 A queen lives four years as a rule, and so long as she 
 lives and is well all is in order in the state. But if any 
 accident h<ippen to her it is at once noticed by her people ; 
 they become restless, cease work, and make an uneasy noise 
 which can be clearly heard from the interior of the leader- 
 less hive. Attacks from without on the queen are heavily 
 avenged by the bees, so that it is dangerous to take away 
 the queen from a swarm, or to kill her. The much used 
 name of " guide " has been given to the queen, because it 
 was thought that she was a male, and acted as guide or 
 lieutenant during swarming. On the same ground those 
 w r hom the extraordinary attachment of the hive to the sup- 
 posed ruler did not escape, called the old ones kings. From 
 this point of view the Roman poet Virgil, in the 4th song of 
 his famous poem on Agriculture, describes this attachment 
 as follows : 
 
 " Not e'en Egyptian 1 ' in such reverence hold 
 Their sovereigns ; such respect has ne'er been felt 
 By those in Crcesus' spacious realms who dwelt, 
 Nor Scythians, nor those far tribes who live 
 On Indus banks. When safe the queen, the hive 
 Is all at peace : but if they lose their queen 
 Their bond of union is broken ; e'en 
 Themselves they suck their honey-stores ; destroy 
 Themselves their comb's pierced fabric. Their employ 
 Is by the queen arranged : her all regard ; 
 Surround with buzz continuous and guard 
 In swarms ; and oftentimes, when wars aiise, 
 Its queen upon its shoulders raising, dies 
 The bee a noble death through countless wounds."* 
 
 * [Taken from Mr. Millington's metrical translation of the 4th Georgic. 
 Yirgil wrote "king" not '-queen," but his translator has set the poet 
 right ! TH.] 
 
 P
 
 214 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 Good as may be the treatment by the working bees of 
 their king, or rather their queen, that which they show 
 towards the lazy and defenceless husbands, the males or 
 so-called drones, is bad and even cruel. The queen-bee lives 
 in a married state which is also often found among mankind, 
 although rarer than its reverse, that known as polyandry. 
 Her male harem is larger than almost any female harem 
 among Orientals, for it consists of many six to eight 
 hundred drones, which play a generally useless part in the 
 bee state, for a single drone is enough to fertilise the queen, 
 and they neither work, nor, lacking the terrible poisoned 
 sting, can they protect and defend the State. They therefore 
 thoroughly represent a hereditary peerage, which lets itself 
 l>e served and fed by an industrious working class, without 
 directly contributing anything to the good of the community; 
 from May to August they lead an easy life, devoted to amuse- 
 ment, imtouched by care or toil. If, indeed, they could 
 foresee the woful fate which awaits them at the end of this 
 period, their bliss would be less untroubled. Their great 
 number which, as has been said, far exceeds real necessity 
 would be a thoroughly incomprehensible and puzzling fact 
 in the otherwise well-ordered bee State, if it were not to be 
 regarded as a legacy from the formerly wild and uncultivated 
 condition of the bees, in which each bee colony lived inde- 
 pendently, and partly because of this, partly because of the 
 many dangers threatening the drones on their flight, a very 
 great number of these was requisite for the secure attain- 
 ment of the object of their existence ; to-day, when as a 
 rule many hives stand close together, and the care and 
 providence of men ward off clangers, so large a number of 
 drones no longer seems necessary. 
 
 This mistake of nature, however, is corrected, or set 
 right again by the prudent workers, which only put up with 
 and feed their idle brethren so long as they consider them 
 necessary for the impregnation of the queen. But in 
 autumn, or late summer, when the wedding flight is over and 
 when food is getting scarce, the famous massacre of the 
 drones takes place, in which the male aristocracy of the state 
 is offered up for the common good, without regard to close 
 family ties between them and the workers. The latter in 
 thousands surround the fat, lazy, defenceless creatures, drive 
 them together into a heap, and either pierce them with their
 
 TIII-: i:!-:;-: NATION. 215 
 
 poisoned stings, or, after they have weakened them by 
 hunger, throw them out of the hive, and they perish the 
 next cool night from cold and hunger so that in the autumn 
 and late summer masses of dead drones are often found 
 lying in front of the beehives. The drones' cells are then 
 torn down, and the chance drones' eggs and pupae found 
 therein are thrown out ; nothing is left alive which recalls 
 idleness and sloth. Any drones which have escaped 
 slaughter on the first day in their own hives, are sought out 
 and massacred on the following. There can be no doubt as 
 to the special ground of this murderous onslaught. The 
 industrious working bees know that during the long winter 
 season the drones, as unproductive consumers, can only 
 hinder the life and well-being of the hive, without being of 
 the smallest use to it, the queen already having been long 
 fertilised. They therefore kill them, obeying the well-known 
 maxim : " He that will not work, neither shall he eat." O 
 shortsighted reason of the bees ! Did ye know that among 
 men those generally eat most and best who work least or not 
 at all, ye would perhaps act more wisely ! 
 
 That the massacre of the drones is not performed entirely 
 from an instinctive impulse, but in full consciousness of the 
 object to be gained, is proved by the circumstance that it is 
 carried out the more completely and mercilessly the more 
 fertile the queen shows herself to be. But in cases when 
 this fertility is subject to serious doubt, or when the queen 
 has been fertilised too late or not at all, and therefore only 
 lays drones' eggs, or when the queen is barren, and new 
 queens, to be fertilised later, have to be brought up from 
 working-bee larvae, then all or some of the drones are left 
 alive, in the clear prevision that their services will be 
 required later. In such hives living drones are often found 
 all through the winter and even in the spring, and this is 
 otherwise exceptional. The foresight and prudence of the 
 workers is so great that in the first year of the foundation 
 of a new colony they do not permit its queen, whose single 
 impregnation suffices, as a rule, for many years, to lay 
 drones' eggs, for they build no drones' cells which owing to 
 the larger bodies of the drones have to be larger and wider 
 than those of the ordinary working-bees and they either 
 make the queen, who is able to lay one or other kind of 
 eggs as she will, understand that she must only lay fertilised
 
 216 THE BEE NATION 
 
 eggs, or else make the laying of unfertilised or so-called 
 drones' eggs impossible. The first idea is the more likely, 
 for in case of need drones' eggs are placed in the smaller cells 
 and these develop into drones. They are under these cir- 
 cumstances smaller than usual, but more room is made for 
 them by the workers by the latter not roofing in the cells 
 flat as for the ordinary broods, but giving them a raised 
 roof. Such a brood is called a " humped brood," owing to 
 the humped appearance of the cells. We see clearly here, 
 as by so many other examples, that the bees are able to 
 accommodate themselves to circumstances thoroughly and 
 consecutively. 
 
 This wise calculation of consequences is further exempli- 
 fied in that sometimes the massacre of the drones takes 
 place before the time for swarming, as, for instance, when 
 long-continued unfavorable weather succeeds a favorable 
 beginning of spring, and makes the bees anxious for their 
 own welfare. If, however, the weather breaks and work 
 again becomes possible, so that the bees take courage anew, 
 they then bring up new drones and prepare them in time for 
 the swarming. This killing of drones is distinguished from 
 the regular drone massacre by the fact that the bees then 
 only kill the developed drones, and leave the drone larvae, 
 save when absolute hunger compels their destruction. Not 
 less can it be regarded as a prudent calculation of circum- 
 stances when the bees of a hive, brought from our temperate 
 climate to a more southern country where the time of col- 
 lecting lasts longer, do not kill the drones in Angust, as 
 usual, but at a later period suitable to the new conditions. 
 
 A bee State without drones is a real female State in the 
 fullest sense of the words, for it contains only fertile females 
 andf emales with rudimentary sexual organs. Even the presence 
 of the drones alters this character very little or not at all, for, 
 as will be shown, these only play a very secondary part, and 
 the whole far-reaching intelligence of the bees, as of other 
 social insects, must clearly for the most part be inherited 
 from the mother's side. ^ Amongst men also, according to 
 the assertion of famous writers, remarkable mental gifts 
 have been inherited more from the mother than from the 
 father. In any case the role of the male element in the bee 
 State is so subordinate to the female, that the highest ideal 
 of female desire for emancipation appears here to be realised,
 
 THE BEE NATION. 217 
 
 and that our champions of emancipation should here find an 
 unexpected support of their theory. 
 
 The poor drones, or males, find themselves completely in 
 the power and under the dominion of their working sisters. 
 But even the queen herself, great as is the love and honor 
 usually shown to her, is not secure from the stings of her 
 democratically-minded subjects if she do not fulfil her royal 
 duties in every re.-pect as expected and demanded of her. 
 When, for instance, the time for swarming, the division of 
 the colony, has arrived, the old queen sometimes decides 
 only reluctantly to leave the dear home-hive, and make 
 room for her younger rivals. She comes out, followed by 
 a crowd of her dependents, but soon returns to the hive, 
 still accompanied by them. But if this is repeated two or 
 three times without the queen taking flight, the bees, 
 angered at the repeated deception, fall upon her and kill 
 her, either with their stings or by smothering her, or they 
 pull her off the board so that she may perish outside the 
 hive a friendly proceeding termed " an exile," by bee- 
 masters. Men are wont to be more lenient towards the 
 faults or weaknesses of their kings, and the banishment of 
 them by their rebellious subjects but seldom repeats itself 
 in history, while, as a rule, when the matter is reversed, 
 men are not so punctilious, and the banishment of rebellious 
 and disloyal subjects is a valued and much used privilege of 
 human rulers. 
 
 A late-impregnated queen, who lays more drones' eggs 
 than others, is also not safe from her subjects, which insist 
 on the greatest order and regularity being observed in their 
 household. " A female shut up for thirty days in June was 
 set free and came back impregnated. From the beginning 
 of June until November she laid only male eggs, and con- 
 tinued the same proceeding in the following April. The 
 working bees became wild and unsettled, and killed her in 
 May" (Giebel, "Natural History of Animals," iv.,p. 191). It 
 has already been mentioned that older queens, which in 
 consequence of exhaustion of their store of semen can lay no 
 more fertilized eggs, share a similar fate. 
 
 When the weather is bad, so that the old queen is unable 
 to swarm and found a new colony soon enough before the 
 emergence of her young rivals, the bees will kill her or drive 
 her by force out of the hive, unless, on the other hand, the
 
 218 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 royal brood has been killed on account of the impossibility 
 of swarming. Her endeavors to render impossible the 
 emergence of the young queens who threaten her rule, by 
 hurrying to the cells in which the royal larvae lie, tearing 
 them out and killing them, are generally frustrated by the 
 care of the working bees watching the brood, so that at 
 length nothing remains to her but to leave her ungrateful 
 subjects, accompanied by her dependents, and to found a new 
 hive. Sometimes the working bees let the old queen carry 
 out her murderous intentions, when, as the bee-masters say, 
 there is no " inclination to swarm," or when the hive will not 
 be overfull with the newly emerged bees, and there is there- 
 fore no need to divide. In other cases the killing of the 
 young bees would render swarming impossible, and must 
 therefore be prevented. The younger bees are most interested 
 herein, as they long for " room for the flight of free souls," 
 so they protect their future rulers or worship the rising sun, 
 while the older bees hold rather to the old queen, and leave 
 the hive with her and a few drones. This is not surprising, 
 as the older bees are accustomed to their old and beloved 
 queen and prefer her to a new and strange one. Yet they 
 often take different sides, the exact peculiarities and reasons 
 of which are until now as dim and mysterious as the mani- 
 fold and often puzzling parties among men. Whether pride, 
 vanity, self-interest and place-hunting have any part therein, 
 as among men, is not yet revealed to the naturalist. But in 
 any case this is certain, that jealousy and love of dominion, 
 the burning desire to rule alone, is the motive which impels 
 the queen, and leads her to deeds which exactly reproduce 
 those which fill many sad pages of human rule with deeds 
 that make the hair stand on end. Thence comes it that 
 after the flight of the old queen concord is not re-established 
 within the hive for some time, although the marvellously 
 sensible working bees, as we shall immediately see, take no 
 part in the strife, and even try to curb it by force. They 
 feed the larvae of the future queens in the royal cells in 
 different ways, with the object of preventing their simulta- 
 neous emergence. They also retain an emerged queen in her 
 cell until the time for swarming arrives. If the working 
 bees fail in their object, and two or more young queens emerge 
 simultaneously or close together, they then fight bitterly 
 until one or other is victor. As already said, the working
 
 THE BEE NATION. 219 1 
 
 bees take no part in the duel of the pretenders to the crown, 
 but look quietly on at the battle with crossed forelegs, and 
 finally acclaim the conqueror and offer her their homage. 
 As to the corpse of the vanquished, they content themselves 
 with throwing it out of the hive. They behave throughout 
 as prudent politicians, and that in two respects. First, in 
 that they wholly accommodate themselves to the all- 
 important result, and secondly that they let their rulers 
 fight out their own battles and take no part in them them- 
 selves. Human rulers act very differently. When they 
 want to fight out a question, it is the blood of their subject* 
 that has to be spilt, and however the quarrel may end the 
 latter on both sides have the blows. Quidquid delirant 
 reges, plectuntur Achivi! (Whatever the kings may rave 
 ab'>'it the blows fall on the people.) 
 
 But the young queens themselves behave no less prudently 
 than their subjects in the battles, and seem to follow the 
 well-know Falstaffean saying, that " Discretion is the -better- 
 part of valor." Franz Huber (''New observations on Bees," 
 published by G. Kleine, 1859) saw two youog queens, which 
 had come out of their cells almost simultaneously, fall 
 angrily on each other, but at once loosen their grasp when 
 they found that the use of their stings would, in the position 
 in which they were, kill them both. A few minutes later 
 the rivals again attacked each other, but the result of the 
 meeting was the same as before. The onlooking working 
 bees seemed very discontented with the cowardice of their 
 rulers ; they threw themselves in the path of the fugitives 
 and tried to hold them. On a third attack one succeeded 
 in approaching her rival unseen. She seized her at the root 
 of the wings with her teeth, mounted on her body, and drove 
 her sting without difficulty right through the abdomen. The 
 vanquished doubled itself up, crawled helplessly forward, 
 quickly lost its strength and soon died. Huber made similar 
 observation several times ; the working bees always tried to 
 hinder the flight of the combatants, while they gave them 
 plenty of room so long as they were moving towards each 
 other, and during the battle itself formed a regular ring 
 round them. 
 
 If the young queens, as is usual, emerge at different 
 times, the one which has emerged first tries to inflict on her 
 yet unborn rivals the same fate which the old queen tried
 
 *&V THE BEE NATIOX. 
 
 to inflict on her ; she tears open the royal cells, and 
 smothers the inmates. The working bees only interfere 
 with her so long as there are enough bees to form a new 
 swarm. In this case she is compelled to leave the hive in 
 the same way as was her predecessor, and in this way, 
 during the course of a single summer, or only a few weeks, 
 three, four, or more swarms are ^ent off one after the other. 
 They become, naturally, continually weaker, and are called 
 secondary swarms. When the hive has by this repeated 
 swarming become sufficiently thinned, the working bees no 
 longer tend and guard the young queens in the former 
 fashion, but let them fight each other without hindrance, 
 until only a single one remains. If a strange queen be 
 placed in a hive already provided with a chief, she is at 
 once stung or smothered to death by the working bees. 
 
 Sometimes it happens that in consequence of these fights 
 and by often repeated swarming all the queens in a hive 
 have disappeared, and this, as already said, means the 
 necessary destruction of the hive if the want cannot be 
 supplied. The bees become restless, cease working and scatter. 
 The younger ones fly away, the elder remain in the hive to 
 die. The bee-masters know that the queen bee is dead by 
 the cessation of all life in and around the hive, and by 
 hearing in the interior a dull or sad complaining noise. 
 But, remarkable to say, these striking changes do not take 
 place when at the time at which the hive has become queen- 
 less, there are either royal pupae from which new queens 
 will shortly emerge, or when there are in some of the cells 
 of the hive working bee young, not more than three days 
 old, for the bei s know that they can by special treatment 
 develop other new queens from such working bee eggs or 
 larva?, and indeed they manage this important bringing up 
 business with the care and cleverness which distinguish all 
 their actions. They first select the young working bee 
 larvae which are to be given the nursing necessary to change 
 them into queens, and widen into royal cells the cells in 
 which they are, by pulling down the contiguous partition 
 walls. Then three neighboring cells are torn away and the 
 larvjR and food ia them carried away. A cylindrical en- 
 closure is next built all round, whereby the rhomb-shaped 
 floor is kept up. for by its destruction the cells and larvae of 
 the opposite side would suffer. The larva remains for three
 
 THE BEE NATION. 221 
 
 days in this cyl'ndrical tube. But as it requires for its 
 development a royal dwelling like a pyramid-shaped cell, 
 the point of which must be directed downwards, the bees at 
 the end of the third day pull away the cells lying beneath, 
 sacrifice the larvae contained therein, and use the wax thus 
 obtained to build a second pyramid-like tube beneath the 
 first.* The cell is lengthened as the larva grows ; and it is 
 continually and amply fed with the royal food, a specially 
 prepared and very nourishing mixture of honey and pollen, set 
 apart for the queens and their larvae, and is continually 
 watched and guarded in the most careful manner by bees 
 which relieve each other. The stimulating influence of this 
 peculiar kind of food so develops the sexual organs which 
 otherwise would have remained rudimentary of the insects 
 thus treated, that they finally become fertile queens or 
 mothers, capable of maintaining and propagating the race. 
 Sometimes also, so-called false or factitious queens are 
 thrown off, which by eating the royal food have stimulated 
 their sexual organs to further development, and which, 
 without impregnation, lay a number of drones' eggs. 
 They are therefore named drone-mothers, and the resulting 
 hive drone-bearing. 
 
 While the bees thus spare no trouble and pains to remedy 
 the fatal loss of their queen in the above fashion, they are yet 
 not so short-sighted nor so driven by instinct as not at once to 
 relinquish this slow and toilsome work if their loss be made 
 good to them by an accident. Franz Huber, in getting rid 
 of the young in a hive, sent in too much smoke, and many 
 of the older bees, and among them the queen, escaped. Huber 
 considered the hive as lost, whtn he found the queen the 
 next day some distance off, in che midst of a knot of bees, 
 and carried it back to the queenless hive. But how great 
 was his surprise when he found that, in this short time, the 
 queenless bees had begun and nearly finished three royal 
 
 * It may here be asked why tho generally sensible bees do not 
 implify the matter by building a regular royal cell, into which they 
 could cairv the eggs or larva) to be brought up. But leaving aside the 
 fact that the carrying or tirapging of the latter can be of no use, ihe 
 building of real royal cells is more toilsome, slower, and especially 
 costlier than the pioceeding above described, which cnly requires the 
 easily repaired 1< ss of a few workers' cells and larvae. So that here 
 again the bees choose the shortest and simplest plan.
 
 222 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 cells. He tore down two and left only the third. The 
 following morning he saw, to his astonishment, that the 
 bees, which now had their queen again and required no 
 other, had carried away all the food from the royal cell 
 clearly to prevent the larva therein contained from develop- 
 ing into a queen ! 
 
 In the same way bees which have a queen but which are 
 given larvse with royal food to take care of, pull them out 
 of their cells and greedily eat up the food. But if they are 
 without a queen, they change the cells into royal ones and 
 nurse the larvce into queens. The time which may elapse in 
 such cases before the emergence of the queen-pupse extends, 
 or may extend, to fourteen clays or more, and the bees, as 
 has been said, remain perfectly quiet and depressed during 
 this time, awaiting the coming event. The life of the hive 
 here depends entirely on an idea, or on the picture in the 
 brain of the little creatures of a future event that is outside 
 the ordinary rule, and it is comprehensible neither by " in- 
 stinct " nor by " inheritance," but only by a mental process. 
 
 Better and quicker than even the bees themselves, can men r 
 as the bee-masters, come to the help of a chieftainless hive by 
 introducing a new and full-grown queen. But this proceed- 
 ing is attended with special difficulties, for the bees of a hive 
 only suffer their own members in it, aud chase away or kill 
 bees of another colony, distinguishing them apparently by 
 smell. The same fate would befall a strange queen, who is 
 received on her arrival with an angry humming, were it not 
 that man's ingenuity has invented the so-called queen-house. 
 It is a little cage, woven out of fine wire- trellis, in which 
 the queen is enclosed and introduced into a queenless hive. 
 The trellis prevents the bees from killing the new comer at 
 once, and gives them time to recognise her as a new queen > 
 and to acknowledge or accustom themselves to her. 
 
 Such fin event is admirably described by Major D. Schal- 
 lich, of Ludwigsburg, in a letter kindly sent to the author, 
 Nov. 17, 1875 : 
 
 " The minister of Laudenbach, in Verbach-Thal, is one of 
 the most distinguished bee-masters in Wurtemburg. I saw at 
 his place how he took the honey from the comb, and how the 
 bees were not simple enough to build new cells, but without 
 further trouble carried the honey into the cells built by 
 their predecessors. If it were a question of instinct, they
 
 THE BEE NATION. 2'?3- 
 
 should instinctively have built cells one time as well as 
 another. At the same minister's I saw a pretty little ex- 
 periment. It is well known that the inhabitants of a hive 
 accept no strangers. The minister took a bee and put it 
 down among those which were on guard in front of another 
 hive. The latter at once fell on the involuntary intruder, 
 killed it, and threw it over. A hive happened to have lost 
 its queen, and a new ruler was to be given to it. But if a 
 strange queen were simply put down in front of the queen- 
 less hive, she would at once blindly and ' instinctively ' be 
 put to death by the guards. The matter, therefore, had to- 
 be managed craftily. Jf we had understood bee-language, a 
 careful speech, in which they would have been made aware 
 of the high honor conferred on them and their future duties, 
 would doubtless have been sufficient. The bees would have 
 had time enough to master their feelings of grief, and to 
 think of business. This time must be given them in another 
 way. With this object our bee-master had a pretty little 
 trap of finest wirework, a mouse-trap of the tiniest sort. In 
 this he put the queen with a small court, closed a little 
 opening with wax, and placed the apparatus in front of the 
 hive to which he desired to give a new sovereign. Naturally 
 the bees fell ' instinctively ' on the little cage and tried to 
 kill the inmates, but the wire saved them. The murderers 
 pressed hotly round the cage ; but suddenly they recognised 
 the majesty before them. Anger ceased; wonderingly and 
 dutifully they surrounded the queen. The news of the glad 
 event spread with lightning rapidity through the hive, and 
 a glad humming expressed the feeling of the bees. Crowds 
 left the hive and hastened to see the queen and to assure 
 her of their entire devotion. The popular vote was brief 
 and demanded unanimously the acceptation of the stranger 
 as queen. The guards, ashamed of their insulting reception, 
 stood aside; after careful investigation of the prison the 
 wax closing the opening was discovered and removed, and 
 the queen by the grace of God (or the minister F. B.) was 
 led to the throne. Her suite also remained unhurt. I 
 scarcely think that the queen had previously taken any 
 solemn promises. She was met with absolute trust, for a 
 queen had never yet deceived her people ! The event which 
 is the basis of this little story will be confirmed by the 
 minister of Laudenbach."
 
 224 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 The artificial replacement of a dead or lost queen by 
 another or by a stranger is the more easily effected the 
 longer it happens after the loss, or the longer the bees have 
 had to forget their former ruler. This will happen in from 
 twenty-four to thirty hours. Huber gave a new queen to a 
 hive that had been queenless for four-and-twenty hours. 
 The bees nearest her touched her with their antennae, felt her 
 all over the body with their proboscides, offered her honey, 
 fluttered their wings and formed a circle round the ruler. 
 They then made room for others which acted in a similar 
 way, and so the circle enlarged continually. They then all 
 fluttered their wings and shook themselves without confusion 
 or noise, as though they had made a very delightful dis- 
 covery. When the queen set herself in motion, the circle 
 opened, formed a hedge, and escorted her. When she 
 arrived at the other side of the comb, where hitherto com- 
 plete quiet had prevailed, the same reception was repeated. 
 The workers busy at the royal cells stopped work, pulled out 
 the royal larvae, and then devoured the food stored up round 
 them ! From thenceforward the queen was recognised by all 
 the people, and behaved herself as though perfectly at home. 
 The bees, however, are exceedingly capricious creatures, 
 and will one day willingly accept an introduced queen, and 
 the next fall upon her with really diabolical fury, although 
 she had been given to them twenty-four or forty-eight 
 hours after their loss. In the attempt to introduce Italian 
 bees into Germany, the Freiherr of Berlepsch always found 
 that at least three queens out of four, in spite of the greatest 
 care and prudence, were stung, smothered, maimed, or chased 
 away, while in the succeeding summer his experience was 
 exactly the opposite. In any case it seems that a queenless 
 hive will receive willingly a strange queen only when the 
 feeling or consciousness of queenlessness and helplessness 
 has spread through the whole hive and is shared by each indi- 
 vidual bee. So long as this is not the case, it cannot be 
 surprising that a strange queen is treated and illused as such 
 by the majority of the bees. 
 
 An interesting observation on this point is published by 
 the liev. George Kleine, of Luethorst, in his pamphlet on 
 Italian bees and beekeeping (Berlin, 1855): "In order to 
 give a German hive an Italian queen I take away," he says, 
 u a fully-stocked hive and put in its place one with empty
 
 THE BEE NATION. 225 
 
 comb and a honey-table hung out, within which is the new 
 queen, in a bee-cage and placed on a brood-comb. Many of 
 the bees collecting honey, which had flown and were still 
 flying from the hive taken away, return to the fresh hive, 
 because it is on the stand to which they are accustomed and 
 which is well known to them. But the moment they fly in, 
 they at once become aware of the great change. They stop, 
 do not know where they are, come out of the hole again 
 without depositing their loads, fly off, look most carefully 
 round the stand to assure themselves that they have made 
 no mistake, and go in once more when convinced that they 
 are at the right place. The same thing is repeated over and 
 over again, until the bees at last bow to the incompre- 
 hensible and unavoidable, lay down their loads and set to 
 work at those tasks made necessary by the new arrangements 
 of the hive. But as all the newly arriving bees behave in 
 similar fashion, the disturbance lasts until late in the evening, 
 and the uncertainty and anxiety of the bees is so great that 
 the bee-master cannot contemplate them without deep 
 sympathy. Night, however, lightens their trouble ; they 
 learn to yield to the inevitable, and although the disturbance 
 has not quite ceased by the following day yet the affairs of 
 the new colony begin to get into order. By the third day 
 everything is regular ; the bees regard themselves as the 
 rightful inmates of the new dwelling, this being shown by 
 the fact that they no longer yield free passage to members 
 of their former home which had flown away, but send them 
 back as unauthorised intruders. The caged queen can be 
 set free from her prison very soon, as a rule after four-and- 
 twenty hours, for the feeling of the first-comers that they 
 have no right to the new dwelling and have made some in- 
 explicable mistake and cannot get right again, does not allow 
 them to experience any hostility towards the imprisoned 
 queen. They probably consider themselves as merely on 
 sufferance, and feel that they should be grateful that no 
 action is taken against them for their illegal entry, as 
 generally happens in bee experience." 
 
 Who can deny that in this whole remarkable behavior of 
 the bees a complete understanding of a changed situation 
 is betrayed, and man himself could not show it better nor 
 more clearly. The same comprehension and prudent fore- 
 sight in an unusual situation are manifested in the following
 
 -226 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 case. The wind threw down from the stand of a bte-master 
 a friend of the author's whose name will soon become 
 known a straw bee-hive, the inmates of which were sur- 
 prised in full work, and no small disorder in the interior 
 was the result. The owner repaired the hive, put the 
 loose comb back in its place, and replaced it in such a 
 manner that the wind could not again catch it, hoping that, 
 the accident would have no further results. But when he 
 examined the hive a few days later, he found that the lees 
 Jiad left their old home in the lurch, and had tried to 
 enter other hives, clearly because they could no longer 
 trust the weather, and feared that the terrible accident 
 might again befall them. 
 
 It is almost impossible to introduce a new queen into a 
 chiefless hive with a factitious queen, because the bees are under 
 the delusion that they already have one. The egg-laying 
 worker will also readily smother the real queen that is given, 
 because it believes itself to be one. The never-erring 
 " instinct " does not therefore tell them of their fatal error, 
 any more than it tells the leaf-cutting solitary hunlble-bee 
 if it cuts its leaves too large or too small for the protection 
 and covering of its eggs, or if it makes a mistake in the 
 choice of the leaves. (Reimarus, loc. cit. 2nd ed. p. 181.) 
 Nor can the hatred shewn as described by the queen-bee 
 towards her royal relations, which drives her to murder 
 them, be well described as the result of an instinctive ten- 
 dency, evoked for. the benefit of the community ; since it is 
 not clear why it should not be as good in the bee as in 
 the ant State for several queens to live together, and since 
 such an arrangement would rather promote than prejudice 
 the welfare of the community. There are in fact some races, 
 such as the Egyptian bees, which always have several 
 queens. By the frequent driving out of old queens and the 
 formation of new swarms a real advantage for the general 
 spread of the race would be given. So that nothing can bear 
 the blame save the desire of the queen, inherited from genera- 
 tion to generation, for personal rule, wherewith is conjoined 
 the sad consciousness that the appearance of a rival in the 
 old hive means her own abdication and the compulsion to 
 seek a new home. In any case it ought not to be forgotten 
 in judging these circumstances, that young queens are, as a 
 rule, more fruitful than old ones, and that, therefore, by
 
 THE 1JKK NATION. 227 
 
 natural selection in the struggle f<ir existence a tendency 
 may have been gradually evolved in the bees themselves 
 which would lead them to favor the change of sovereignty.
 
 228 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SWARMING. 
 
 THE two greatest events in the bee State are the already- 
 mentioned swarming and wedding flights, and the behavior 
 of the bees in these important respects shows incontrovertibly 
 that they are perfectly conscious both of the object to be 
 attained and of the difficulties and dangers surrounding it. 
 Swarming, or the foundation of a new colony, does not take 
 place until " bee-takers," that is scouts or spies, have been 
 sent out, which investigate the neighboring places and seek 
 for the most suitable spot for the new colony. The extra- 
 ordinary restlessness of those that remain behind clearly 
 shows that they know what an important matter is in hand. 
 The majority do not go about their ordinary work, but hang 
 in thick beard-like masses outside the mouth of the hive. 
 A loud clear hum is heard inside and outside the hive, which 
 lasts through the whole night, According to F. Huber the 
 queen is restless, lays her eggs irregularly or drops them, 
 interchanges touches with the bees which come in her way, 
 and climbs on their backs. No one offers her honey, as 
 usual ; she takes it herself out of the cells which lie in her 
 way, and no homage is paid her. Those which are disturbed 
 by her movements follow her, run idly over the comb and 
 spread the commotion to the other parts of the hive. As 
 soon as the queen has been all over the hive the restlessness 
 is general. The workers no longer concern themselves with 
 the young, those which return from collecting do not dis- 
 burden themselves of the pollen, but run wildly about. The 
 uproar raises the temperature of the hive so much that 
 the wax begins to melt, and this helps to induce the 
 undecided ones to swarm. The temperature rises to 27 P or 
 32 Q R.[33fand40 C,or92fandl04 F.-TR.]aheatwhich 
 is as a rule intolerable to bees. The bees crowded together 
 at the mouth of the hive become so hot that those under-
 
 THE BEE NATION. 229 
 
 neath, owing to the down-draught of the hot vapor, become 
 bathed in sweat. Their wings become so damp that they are 
 not in a condition to fly and cannot get far beyond the board. 
 
 When the restlessness and tumult have reached their 
 height, the flight at last begins providing that the weather 
 is clear and sunny and that the scouts have brought good 
 reports after some of the bees, to omit no prudent pre- 
 caution, have put in their honey-bags provisions enough for 
 three or four days. The swarm darts up in the air with the 
 swiftness of an arrow, but soon comes again to rest, for before 
 the regular flight a kind of gathering and trial of strength 
 takes place. A necessary condition is of course the presence 
 of the queen. If this is wanting the swarm returns to the 
 hive ; otherwise the yet undecided bees gather more and 
 more round the swarm, which, as a rule, settles and hangs 
 round a bough of some tree standing near the mother hive. 
 If two or more queens are present, as is often the case in 
 vigorously swarming hives, the swarm divides, or if the 
 swarm has settled the queens fight until only one remains. 
 
 The moment of the earlier gathering of the bees is the 
 point which the bee-master must not miss if he wants to 
 catch the young swarm and put it into a previously prepared 
 hive this only being possible also if the queen is present 
 and is caught. If he does not succeed, the whole swarm, 
 so soon as the gathering is complete, is off and away, to 
 settle down on some place which seems to it suitable. As, 
 however, several days are often lost over this gathering to- 
 gether, and as after arriving at their new home some time 
 must elapse before they can bring in fresh food, it is evident 
 how necessary and well-considered is the already mentioned 
 carrying with them of provisions by the swarming bees. 
 The queen is on the journey the object of the tenderest care, 
 and some observers assure us that she is supported and 
 carried by strong working bees. This is at least true as 
 regards the older queens with somewhat worn out-wings, 
 while the younger ones fly vigorously. Secondary swarms 
 with young queens send out no scouts, as a rule, but fly at 
 random through the air. They clearly lack the experience 
 and prudence of the older bees. 
 
 The dwelling which the bee-catcher offers to his swarm is 
 not accepted by it altogether carelessly and without further 
 trouble, but is first carefully examined. If it does not meet 
 
 Q
 
 230 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 with popular approval, as for instance if the interior be dirty 
 or ill-smelling, or is too large or too small for the needs of 
 the swarm, the bees leave it again to search for some other 
 and often far distant place. If an empty hive is in the 
 neighborhood which meets with the approval of the scouts, 
 the swarm takes possession thereof. 
 
 M. de Fraviere had the opportunity of observing the 
 manner in which such an examination is carried on, and 
 with what prudence and accuracy. He placed an empty 
 beehive, made in a new style, in front of his house so that 
 he could exactly watch from his own window what went on 
 inside and out without disturbance to himself or to the bees. 
 A single bee came and examined the building, flying all 
 round it and touching it. It then let itself down on the 
 board, and walked carefully and thoroughly over the 
 interior, touching it continually with its antennae so as to 
 subject it on all sides to a thorough investigation. The result 
 of its examination must have been satisfactory, for after it 
 had gone away it returned accompanied by a crowd of some 
 fifty friends which now together went through the same 
 process as their guide. This new trial must also have had 
 a good result, for soon a whole swarm came, evidently from 
 a distant spot, and took possession. Still more remarkable 
 is the behavior of the scouts when they take possession of a 
 satisfactory hive or box for an imminent or approaching 
 swarm. Although it is not yet inhabited they regard it as 
 their property, watch it and guard it against stranger bees 
 or other assailants, and busy themselves earnestly in the 
 most careful cleansing of it, so far as this cleansing was 
 impossible to the setter-up of the hive. Such a taking 
 possession sometimes occurs eight days before the entrance 
 of the swarm. 
 
 The swarming, which is so important for the maintenance 
 and propagation of the race, can be very simply prevented 
 by artificially widening and enlarging the hive. The nation 
 thus has room enough to spread and to make new combs, 
 and no longer experiences the need of sending out swarms. 
 If it were instinct which impelled bees to swarm such a 
 proceeding would be incredible. Bee-masters distinguish 
 between artificial and natural swarming ; the first is brought 
 about by taking a number of bees forcibly from thickly 
 populated hives, after they have been stupefied by smoke, and
 
 THE BEE SAHQS. 231 
 
 putting them into a prepared hive in company with a queen. 
 The poor bees are so utterly terrified by this that they yield 
 to the wffl and cunning of the bee-master. But the poetry 
 of swarming, the so-called "i 
 brushed away by this rough proceeding. 
 
 'Fire, smoke, and noise," says 
 in the Bee Jo*r*al (1862, 
 
 home were in flames, have at last driven the 
 
 derers into the new and empty dwelling ; they sit separately 
 
 on the walk, glad no longer to hear the terrifying none, no 
 
 longer to feel the drumming at their beds. They recover ; 
 
 a dear leader is left to them, their queen B stffl among Aem, 
 
 and they again crowd round her. Necessity drives 
 
 work. Like burned-out folk they begin to raise 
 
 home, and the new colony prospers if heaven 
 
 days and food, or if zealous artificial nature helps with 
 
 ample saucers of honey. 
 
 But what is going on in the old home? A portion of 
 the population has not let itself be induced either by blows 
 or by fire to quit the beloved hearth and leave the 
 sleeping in the cradles. At last 
 
 are past. They set to work to mend and support what has 
 
 been injured; they feel themselves again, if only half, in 
 
 their old place. But the hope of stffl fossesang their queen 
 
 is a delusion; their one and all is lacking. Soon they 
 
 recognise their loss ; one part of the house asks the other as 
 
 to the delay of their leader. One after another rushes out 
 
 of the door and seeks in anguish for the beloved. 
 
 and without certain news they turn back 
 
 universal wafl sobs through the house; the walk stream with 
 
 the sweat of agony. Even when the wailing is over, and 
 
 the greater number^ have quieted down, a single 
 
 the common loss, and the weeping breaks out 
 
 grief is extinguished by its own excess, and 
 
 its healing balsam on the bereaved, or until caBcmaxmg man 
 
 sends in a new queen, or a child of the lost stmaejgn after 
 
 long space of time is brought up from the cradle to the 
 throne. Outside stands the bee-masttr, listening to hear 
 whether peace has not yet returned, and could weep in 
 
 j ._____ _-;*K ! JLJ_JL_? W> 
 
 company wuu ms sorrowing' DC 
 he has himself brought about."
 
 282 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 Quite different to the eye and the heart of the friend of 
 the bees is the natural or uncompelled swarming, although 
 it depends more on chance and favorable or unfavorable 
 circumstances. " There is fresh glad nature ; a union of 
 fortunate surroundings are necessary, good food, a sunny 
 day, warm balmy air, if all are to succeed ; there is the 
 
 charm of fear and hope The first drones have 
 
 ventured out into the midday sun and whisper glad hope 
 into the ear of the bee-master. There is a loud hum in the 
 
 hive In sultry nights some of the bees make their 
 
 beds outside and scatter in the morning to go to their work. 
 But on a fine warm morning not one flies away, as though 
 something special were on foot. Some come out, surround 
 their friends, bring them news from within and explain by 
 fluttering movements the approaching flight. As soon as 
 the bee-master approaches the garden he hears the swarm- 
 ing-music, more welcome than the best concert. The 
 swarming bees fly zigzag, ever fresh crowds streaming out 
 of the hive, one after another. Many in their haste fall to 
 the ground, but pick themselves up again and join in the 
 merry dance. There is silence at the mouth of the hive, 
 but there is life in the air ; clear rays of sunshine break 
 through the little living cloud. Hither and thither sways 
 the swarm ; no place of rest has yet been chosen and the 
 eye of the bee-master follows them ceaselessly. Now 
 comes a sharp gust of wind, and blows down the swarming 
 bees. Back on the old hive fall queen and people : the 
 little heap already gathering on a branch falls off again. 
 The hive is black all is over. The fair hope has vanished ; 
 the beautiful swarming day has passed away in vain ; a 
 few pounds of honey have taken flight : sadly the owner 
 
 wanders round his hives Listen ! a sound strikes his 
 
 ear. Tilt ! tut ! there it is again, and Quak ! quak ! in har- 
 
 * The Tiiten and Quaken are caused by the just emerged or nearly 
 emerging young queens, and serve as a sign of approaching swarming 
 to the bee-master. As soon as a young queen is ready to emerge, she 
 announces the fact by this sound of " Quak! " If no emerged queen 
 answers with her " Tilt " she slips safely and quietly out, but wisely 
 remains in her cell if she hears the jealous answering cry, and for so 
 long as this is heard within the hive. This cry, arising from fear and 
 jealousy, can be heard in each hive which has several young queens at
 
 THE BEE NATION. 233 
 
 breaks Ere the sun is high begins the prelude. 
 
 Louder and louder peals the music ; the swarms come out, 
 and this time in earnest, for now on the war-dance depends 
 throne and life. There, on the pear-tree, the crowd grows 
 
 denser and denser You may count twenty thousand, 
 
 well armed for fight and work." 
 
 After the swarm has been caught in the swarm-net, it is 
 placed in the prepared hive, carefully cleaned within. 
 " Crowds rush out of the mouth of the hive ; but they soon 
 stop, turn round, and beat their wings joyfully. They know 
 that their queen is inside. The swarm is successful. The 
 wildest and most unruly gather at the entrance and hum 
 joyfully. A small portion of the army still remain on the 
 tree ; but they soon begin to move, and search up and down 
 for the queen. They hear the hum, fly off, and on to the 
 hive. The bough is soon deserted, and no corpse marks the 
 
 field of battle The most impetuous soon come out 
 
 and scan the hive and the vicinity. Building begins inside ; 
 soon there is a rustling and sweeping, presently a flying off 
 and carrying. Yet a few lively preliminaries, and all feel at 
 home : the new state begins to flourish. But how is it in 
 the old hive ? Peace has entered there. Many caskets 
 truly are empty, for the travellers could not be sent out into 
 the unknown with empty hands. . . . Many a child, repent- 
 ing the leaving, returns to the mother-home, and the younger 
 sisters in the cradle are growing vigorously. The old mother 
 may have gone, but hopeful daughters lie in the silence of 
 the royal chamber ; until they are ready to rule the house- 
 hold, all goes quietly on its way ; the house is in perfect 
 order. The domestic party-strife is over ; each member 
 goes peacefully to its work. The brilliant part, however, of 
 all bee-keeping is the swarming time, for the poesy that is 
 therein. In natural swarming is the poesy of bee-keeping." 
 
 It is always the old queen who heads the first, or primary 
 
 swarming time. The ' ' Tilt " arises from the free, the " Quak " from 
 the still enclosed queens, and is caused by the expiration of the air 
 through the stigmata or air-holes found on either side of the body. 
 That these noises can have no object save that of mutual communi- 
 cation is proved by the fact that a young queen emits no " Quak " after 
 her emergence, while a free queen only calls when she hears the other, 
 and remains dumb when she has no rival to fear. All this only, as 
 said, concerns the young queens. The old queens do not emit this cry.
 
 234 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 swarm, but not before she has laid eggs in the royal cells, 
 out of which new queens develop after her departure. But 
 the all-presaging and care-taking working-bees do not build 
 these cells until they see the queen busy laying drones' eggs, 
 for it is only after this laying that the body of the queen is 
 thin and light enough to take flight. Also, as said above, 
 the hive must be sufficiently populous, that is, the bees must 
 have a surplus number large enough to make a swarm. If 
 this be not the case, the building of royal cells is left undone, 
 even though the queen be occupied in laying drones' eggs. 
 Sometimes the excitement in a hive during swarming is so 
 great and infectious that nearly all, or the greater part, of 
 the bees therein take part in it, and the hive would seem 
 deserted if the great number of the bees abroad and foraging, 
 as well as the emergence of the young broods, did not quickly 
 refill it. 
 
 Very interesting also is the way in which the bees guard 
 the royal cells and the future queens contained therein from 
 attacks of the already emerged and free queens during the 
 time of swarming. All the cells are carefully watched by 
 a number of workers, and as soon as the queen approaches 
 them she is pinched, pulled and bitten until she retreats. 
 This proceeding is often repeated during the day. As soon 
 as the queen, standing still and leaning her breast against the 
 comb, begins her accustomed song, it is as though the bees 
 were electrified : they bend their heads and remain motion- 
 less. But as soon as the singing ceases the charm is over, 
 and the renewed attempts of the queen to destroy the royal 
 cells are repulsed in the same way. The enclosed and im- 
 prisoned queens, which do not venture or are not allowed to 
 leave their cells so long as an emerged queen is calling, now 
 and then push their proboscis through a little hole they have 
 made in the wax, and let themselves be fed by the guards 
 with honey. As soon as this is done they draw back the 
 proboscis and the chink is waxed up again by the bees. The 
 bees are able to distinguish the relative ages of each of the 
 queens, and let them out of their cells exactly in order of 
 age. It has already been said that they are able to volun- 
 tarily change or decide the time of their maturity. 
 
 When many swarms have been thrown off in this way, 
 the number of the remaining bees is at length so small that 
 they are no longer numerous enough to properly watch the
 
 THE BEE NATION. 235 
 
 royal cells. Several young queens then break out simulta- 
 neously, seek each other out and fight ; the queen coming 
 victorious out of the strife takes possession of the throne 
 without opposition. The imprisonment of the young queens 
 lasts longest in bad weather, which hinders the swarming. 
 
 Except at the swarming season the above described protec- 
 tion afforded by the bees to the royal cells is less careful, and 
 indeed generally scarcely exists : this is clearly because the 
 young queens are no longer needed to lead secondary swarms, 
 and therefore their assassination in the larval or pupal state 
 is seen without regret. It is less evident why, as F. Huber 
 assures us, similar behavior is often seen in the primary 
 swarm led by the old queen, and the latter is not, like the 
 young queens, forbidden or prevented from approaching and 
 even destroying the royal cells. Huber thinks that the 
 respect felt by the bees to be due to a fruitful queen, once 
 enfranchised by them, here comes into play, and is also 
 clearly to be seen in other circumstances. Fortunately the 
 old queens, for reasons yet unknown to us, do not make too 
 frequent use of this prerogative, or the keeping and multipli- 
 cation of bee colonies so long as the old queen lived would 
 be impossible. Perhaps also it is again only the older bees 
 which manifest their respect and leave their queen free, 
 partly because of this, and partly from egoistic motives or 
 conservative leanings, while the younger, like youth in 
 general, follow revolutionary principles, and expecting 
 reforms from the new sovereign, guard her from unnatural 
 maternal attacks. All the proceedings here described, how- 
 ever, vary so much in different places and at different times, 
 and the desire to swarm is so strong in the bees in some 
 specially favorable places (as in the forest of Luneberg) that 
 several swarming seasons take place instead of one, an.fi 
 swarm after swarm is thrown off, both from the old hires 
 and the newly-formed colonies. With this increased desire- 
 to swarm are naturally united corresponding inclinations, 
 relative to protecting the queens. 
 
 The second great event in the bee state is the wedding 
 flight, which in the secondary swarms takes place, as a rule, 
 very soon after the foundation of the new colony, and often 
 on the same day, and which is absolutely necessary for 
 producing a fruitful posterity. The queen performs it when 
 the weather is favorable that is, warm, windless, and
 
 236 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 sunny, in company with her husband, the drones, and it lasts 
 for two or three hours. The fertilising act itself is performed 
 high up in the air, and always in the air : never, as with 
 ants, in or on the dwelling. It has, therefore, not yet been 
 accurately observed, and it seems as though a feeling of 
 modesty prevented the queen from performing this act before 
 the eyes of the crowd. Its results, on the other hand, are 
 easily recognised by the condition of the sexual organs, in 
 which, as a rule, the intromittent organ of the male with 
 the adjacent sexual parts remain. 
 
 The working bees left behind know very well that the 
 whole future existence of the colony hangs on the success of 
 the wedding-flight, and the uncertainty makes them so 
 restless that during this time no one can approach 'the hive 
 without being attacked or stung. Perhaps they are afraid 
 also, that any stranger approaching may place some difficulty 
 in the way of the happy return of their queen. They there- 
 fore dance continually round the hive and its vicinity in 
 narrow and wide circles, always keeping their heads turned 
 towards the hive. They cannot well have any object? in this 
 save to impress as deeply as possible on their memory the 
 whole aspect of the place, its appearance, scent, etc., so that 
 they may be able to find it again with certainty on the now 
 imminent flights. Perhaps also they wish to afford the 
 returning queen a mark or guide for refinding the hive. 
 Even when a number of single or of many hives together 
 are on a bee-stand, every single bee is able to at once find 
 its own hive, after they have impressed on their memory by 
 carefully walking over the board, flying round the hive, etc., 
 the appearance, smell, form of the mouth, and so on. Other 
 insects also do the same. Bates several times saw the sand- 
 wasps living by the Amazon (Bernbex ciliata, Monednla 
 signata), which make holes for their young in the sandy 
 banks, go round the place several times before flying away, 
 in order to imprint the locality deeply on their memory so as 
 to find it again. Their ability of refinding the place seems 
 the more wonderful, as the hole itself becomes so filled up 
 with the shifting of the sand that the human eye can see 
 absolutely nothing there ; the fact, therefore, speaks very 
 highly for the wonderful acuteness of sense of these insects. 
 We can observe that when our own native wasps are leaving 
 a place which they wish to revisit, as for instance a half-
 
 THE BEE NATION. 237 
 
 eaten fruit, they try to print the impression of the place 
 deeply in their minds by flying round it and touching it with 
 their heads. The bees behave in a similar way in such 
 cases. Dujardin put a dish of sugar in a niche in a wall a 
 long way off a bee-stand. A single bee which discovered 
 the treasure noted exactly the appearance of the locality 
 by flying round the edges of the niche and pushing its 
 head against it, and then flew away and returned after some 
 little time with a number of its friends, which all fell upon 
 the sugar. 
 
 If the queen does not return from her flight, the whole 
 behavior of the bees manifests deep trouble and uneasiness, 
 and they emit a peculiar plaintive cry, a sort of dull drawn- 
 out wail. It is the same note as is heard, as above men- 
 tioned, from the interior of a queenless or bereaved hive. 
 The greatest restlessness is seen inside and outside the hive. 
 The bees go in and out continually without any decided 
 object, as though they were seeking for their lost queen in 
 all corners, and that even when it begins to get dark, or is 
 dark, whereas under normal conditions darkness drives them 
 all into the hive. "With the described wail are mingled the 
 hissing sharp notes to which angry or irritated bees give 
 vent. On the other hand the wildest joy is shown when the 
 queen returns prosperously, happy, and rich with promise. 
 Full of delight they raise their extended hind-legs, fan the 
 air quickly and unceasingly with their wings, and give a 
 clear distinctive cry of joyful emotion, one which can be 
 easily recognised as such. This is quite different to the hiss 
 or Availing note of the queenless hive, and resembles the 
 joyful, musical " swarming note " emitted by swarming bees. 
 The note of calm content is deep, like the humming in the 
 evening after a good day's foraging. 
 
 Just the same behavior as at the return of the queen, and 
 the same note of pleasure, may be observed in bees when 
 they reach the hive safe and sound after a flight, when 
 threatened storm, tempest, or rain, or when some menacing 
 danger is warded off by themselves or by foreign assistance. 
 They are chiefly anxious during their flights about the 
 weather, and even a threatening cloud in a clear sky will 
 drive them back to the hive, while they will fly out fearlessly 
 if the sky be completely overcast. It often happens that 
 tired, exhausted bees fall down as though they were dead
 
 238 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 before reaching the shelter of home. If they are picked up 
 and put into the hive the same note of joy is heard. 
 
 Sometimes the queen does not obtain the object of her 
 wedding flight, but has to return with the marriage uncon- 
 summated. The flight is then repeated on the following day. 
 If all has been successful and she returns impregnated, the 
 workers, which at once recognise her condition, receive her 
 with every sign of delight, and lead her within the hive, 
 pressing round, caressing, brushing, cleaning her, and 
 showing her every sign of respect. For an impregnated 
 queen is, in the eyes of the bees, quite a different and a far 
 more to be reverenced creature than is an unimpregnated or 
 virgin. While they treat the latter with indifference, the 
 former, as we have said, is the object of the tenderest care 
 and attention. She is at once given a suite of from ten to 
 twenty bees, which follow her everywhere, and stipply all her 
 wants. 
 
 Arrived within the hive, the queen after two or three 
 days, when the first wax cells are ready, begins the chief 
 and most important business of her life, egg-laying. In 
 addition to her regular court, she is generally surrounded 
 by a whole troop of workers which manifest their content by 
 bending their heads before her, dancing up and down, licking 
 and stroking her, and so on. Perhaps this crowding round 
 her has also the object of keeping her warm on cool days, 
 for the queen requires a tolerably high rate of temperature 
 during egg-laying (not less than 10 to 12 R.) 
 
 The queen is able, during the rich foraging time of a 
 populous hive, to lay some thousands of eggs daily, and 
 actually lays daily some hundreds up to a thousand, so that the 
 number of eggs laid during the summer may be twenty, 
 thirty, or forty thousand. She prudently regulates her egg- 
 laying by the amount of provisions collected in the hive, as 
 well as by the number of the inhabitants, and the plentiful- 
 ness of food. Thus in a weak hive and a cold season she 
 only lays a few hundred eggs daily, but in populous hives 
 and abundance of food from two to three thousands ! The 
 queen in her egg-laying is, like all bees, a great stickler for 
 cleanliness ; she feels with her sensitive flexible antennas all 
 over the interior of a cell in which she is going to deposit 
 an egg, in order to see if it is empty, brushed, polished, 
 properly swept, and generally fitted to receive one. If this
 
 THE BEE NATION. 239 
 
 investigation is satisfactory, as it generally is, she turns 
 round and deposits an egg in it from her abdomen. If this 
 experiment is made impossible to her by cutting off her 
 antennae, she lays no more eggs in the cells ; she runs about 
 uneasily over the comb, lets her eggs fall on the floor, 
 where they dry up and perish, and prefers to stay in the 
 combless parts of the hive, to which only a few specially 
 attached bees follow "her. At last, conscious of her com- 
 plete helplessness and uselessness, she tries to leave the hive, 
 and is not accompanied in her flight by a single working- 
 bee. 
 
 The queen, as a rule, lays only one egg in a cell. If she 
 accidently lets more fall into it the accompanying workers, 
 according to the report of most observers, see to their proper 
 division, but Huber denies this, and maintains that the 
 workers could not grasp the eggs without injuring them, on 
 account of their softness. From time to time the queen 
 rests a little from her severe labor, creeping head first into a 
 wide or drone's cell, and lying there motionless for some 
 time. The position which she takes does not permit the 
 accompanying bees to pay her the attention above described. 
 None the less, they do not neglect, even under these circum- 
 stances, to form a circle round her, and to lick the portion 
 of her abdomen left outside. 
 
 The queen apparently has it in her power to lay either 
 drones' eggs or working-bees' eggs, accordingly as she 
 fertilises or not the eggs passing through her oviducts with 
 the male semen, by pressing the laden spermatophores by 
 aid of voluntary muscles. Fertilised eggs produce working- 
 bees or queens, unfertilised, drones. The latter are laid in 
 the larger or drone cells, the former in the smaller or 
 working-bee cells. The most various explanations, me- 
 chanical and accidental, have been given of the peculiar 
 behavior of the queen, and of the question why she should 
 in the one case fertilise the eggs and not in the other, but 
 none of them have been proved to be true. It seems far 
 more probable that the queen has a clear understanding of 
 the object of her work, and lays drones' eggs or fertilised 
 ones as they are required by circumstances. The bee- 
 raasters know very well that a queen which is brought with 
 a young swarm into a hive which has only drones' cells built 
 in it will rather drop her eggs than deposit them in the
 
 240 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 drones' cells, for drones are unnecessary in the first year and 
 are only a loss to the colony, and working bees' eggs will 
 not develop in drones' cells. The queen crawls to the sides 
 where no drones are wanted, across the drones' cells without 
 laying eggs therein. If she had no knowledge of the dif- 
 ferent objects of her egg-laying and was only impelled 
 thereto by an instinct to general egg-laying mechanically 
 controlled, such behavior would be incredible, and it would 
 be a matter of indifference to the queen in what kind of cells 
 she laid her eggs. It is also known that an injury to the 
 last abdominal nerve ganglion makes it impossible for the 
 queen to lay other than drones' eggs, for she can conse- 
 quently no longer voluntarily act on the spermatophore. If, 
 as has been mentioned, the cause is the mechanical pressure 
 of the narrow working-bees' cells on the spermatophore, the 
 queen thus injured would be able to lay male and female 
 eggs as before. There can therefore be no doubt that the 
 queen is able to voluntarily decide the sex of the laid eggs, 
 and that she fertilises them or not with a thorough fore- 
 knowledge in each case of the task before her, just in the 
 same way as she regulates the number of the eggs she lays 
 according to circumstances.* 
 
 This seems the more probable when we learn that the 
 queens seem to know exactly when they have discharged 
 their queenly duties, and in such a case are seized with a 
 presentiment of their appproaching end. The wonderful 
 observation has been made that a queen who, through age 
 or some other weakening circumstance, becomes conscious 
 of her exhaustion, and has communicated this consciousness 
 to her people, provides, in common with them, for the safe 
 succession to the throne, and as soon as this is done gives 
 back the throne and sceptre into the hands of the people, 
 that is, either voluntarily leaves the hive in order to die out- 
 side, or is killed by the bees and thrown out of the hive. 
 
 Perhaps it is a feeling similar to this wonderful perception 
 which, as already said, withholds old queens from making 
 
 * More exact details on this point and on the different explanations 
 offered of it in an appendix to an essay of the famous American bee- 
 master, Charles Dadant, will be found in an essay of the author's, 
 " The German School in opposition to the American " in the " ^Ester- 
 reichischen Bienenzeitung." December, 1879. (Published by Rudolf 
 Mayerhoffer.
 
 THE BEE NATION 241 
 
 use of their prerogative against youthful rivals to the same 
 extent as the young queens sometimes do, and always wish 
 to do, if the people did not interfere for protection.
 
 242 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DOMESTIC WORK. 
 
 WITH the egg-laying of the queen begins the special 
 work of the hive in connection with the maintenance 
 and propagation of the family. The principle of division of 
 labor, which we have already seen carried to so great an 
 extent among ants, is here also fully developed. 
 
 The whole activity of the hive may be divided into two 
 parts, domestic and abroad, the domestic being, as a rule, 
 performed by the younger, and the work abroad by the older 
 bees. This is very easy to establish, for the younger bees 
 are readily distinguished from the older by color and out- 
 side appearance, and are recognisable especially by a fine 
 white down and unsoiled wings. The easier domestic work, 
 requiring less exertion, falls quite naturally to the share of 
 the weaker bees, while the harder and dangerous work out- 
 side belongs to the older and stronger. Yet there are con- 
 siderable grounds for the opinion that a number of older 
 bees remain in the hive to give the younger ones instruction 
 and guidance in their tasks. The young bees themselves, 
 on emerging from the larval or pupal state, are not thoroughly 
 fit and ready, and endowed with the capabilities of their 
 race, as instinct-mongers imagine, but are so weak on the 
 first day after their emergence that they cannot even fly. 
 They require at least from twenty-four to thirty hours before 
 their full strength and capacities are developed. The case 
 of the queens would be similar, were it not that their im- 
 prisonment is, as a rule, prolonged over the time of change, 
 so that during this interval they can become fully developed. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that, as said above, the young bees 
 receive instruction and guidance from the elder, and this the 
 more as the work within the hive is of a very various and 
 complicated sort, and it cannot be imagined that each indi- 
 vidual bee is born with the instinct for a special kind of
 
 THE BEE NATION. 243 
 
 work. Regard for the maintenance of the colony requires 
 that each individual bee, in case of need, shall be able tc 
 undertake each kind of work, and this can be ascertained by 
 direct observation. Since the queen only fulfils her maternal 
 duties so far as the laying of the eggs is concerned, and 
 troubles herself no further as to the fate of her children 
 she, indeed, having no time to do so the whole care of the 
 offspring falls at once on the shoulders of the bees of the 
 hive, and they practically act as nurses as well as attendants. 
 They arrange the cells, or the cradles for the reception of 
 the eggs, clean them, and build new ones when wanted. 
 They prepare the wax for building the cells, and also the 
 so-called bee-bread, which is made out of honey, pollen, and 
 water, and with this are fed not only the very hungry 
 grubs and larvae, but also the queen ; the drones are left to 
 feed themselves from the store- chambers, the working- bees 
 'regarding them with a certain contempt or indifference. 
 The queen, during egg-laying, requires a very large amount 
 of nourishment, on account of which ten or twelve feeders 
 are constantly busied with her. The young bees also, after 
 they have left the cradle, require feeding for some days, 
 until they can eat by themselves, and must also, like human 
 babies, be washed and cleansed from the soiling consequent 
 on birth. There is also a great difference between the food 
 of the drone and working-bee and the royal larvaB ; the 
 latter, during their whole life and until their emergence, are 
 fed with bee-bread, whereas the former only receive this at 
 the beginning, and are only fed with pollen and honey during 
 the later days of larval existence. As the internal sexual 
 organs develop during this period, it is clear why so great a 
 difference is found in the further development of these organs 
 in queens and working-bees. The bee-bread is nothing more 
 than chyme made externally, the digestive process being 
 half performed in the interior of the bees which feed them. 
 It has, however, become more concentrated than chyme by 
 evaporation in the cells. Undigested grains of pollen, which 
 can be easily recognised in the small intestine of the working- 
 bee larvre in the last days of larval life, are not to be found 
 in bee-bread ; under the microscope it is an amorphous 
 tenacious substance, with countless fine granules of fatty 
 appearance. 
 
 The attendants set apart for the young brood have further
 
 244 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 to cover the cells with a waxen roof when a larva begins to 
 spin its cocoon, and later to reopen it to free the imago. 
 When this is done, the soft silky cocoon is either pulled out 
 or else firmly fastened like a tapestry to the interior of the 
 cell ; the cell itself is carefully cleaned and smoothed, so 
 that it may, according to circumstances, serve either for a 
 new egg or for honey. According to Huber the working- 
 bees, as a rule, remain three days in the egg and five days 
 as larvse. After this lapse of time the bees close their cells 
 with a covering of wax, while the larva? begin to spin their 
 silken shirts, taking thirty-six hours to complete their task. 
 Three days later they change into a so-called nympha, and 
 remain for seven or eight days in this condition : on the 
 twentieth day they reach the imago condition, reckoning from 
 the day on which the egg was laid. Their further develop- 
 ment, if there is such, proceeds very rapidly, and is completed 
 in a few days. The development of the queen, owing to her t 
 better food, is rather more rapid ; that of the drones some- 
 what slower. 
 
 Just as with the nursery cells, the house bees have to close 
 with wax the provision cells, or store-rooms, when they are 
 filled with honey, so as to prevent it from running out. The 
 more the cells are filled with honey, the more carefully do 
 the bees prevent any outflow by gradually pulling the 
 wax covering from the edges of the cell over the opening, 
 and closing it in the middle as soon as the cell is completely 
 filled. As these stores serve for food during the winter 
 season, it is strictly forbidden to open them, and only in 
 cases of extreme need, when honey is nowhere else to be 
 found, are the wax coverings raised. During the foraging 
 season, on the contrary, when food enough comes in from 
 without, they are never opened. Other cells, always stand- 
 ing open, serve the bees for daily use, but no bees take more 
 from them than is necessary for the satisfaction of their 
 immediate need. The intemperance so customary among 
 men as regards eating and drinking, which subserves exces- 
 sive enjoyment and not necessity, is normally unknown to 
 this exemplary creature, although, as we shall find later, the 
 vices of gluttony and drunkenness lead many of them to 
 destruction under special circumstances. 
 
 The preparation of the honey itself is entrusted to the 
 house-bees, while the foraging bees only collect outside,
 
 THE BEE NATION. 245 
 
 and carrying off the nectar from the flowers in their honey- 
 bags, put it in the lowest cells so as to fly off again as 
 quickly as possible and collect fresh stores. The nectar is 
 taken by the house bees, turned into honey in the interior 
 of their bodies, and laid by in their upper cells. If the 
 foraging is very successful so that these cells do not suffice 
 for the reception of -the wealth brought in, the wise little 
 insects manage by extending the cells assigned to the honey 
 to four or six times their original length before closing them. 
 These long honey- filled cells, or rather tubes, then thoroughly 
 deserve the name of store-rooms. These chambers have, 
 however, the disadvantage that they seriously narrow the 
 free space necessary for communication between the various 
 combs. But as soon as spring comes, the bees have nothing 
 more urgent to do than to bring these long and then empty 
 cells back to their normal length, and so to again have the 
 proper space between the combs. They also put the combs 
 with the thus lengthened cells originally very far apart, and 
 build between them, when by emptying them their length is 
 become greater than is wanted, one-sided combs, or combs 
 with only one row of cells. 
 
 Special attention is paid to the pollen brought to the hive, 
 each sort of which there are often from six to ten being 
 brought into special cells. These different kinds apparently 
 serve for making different, and especially finer and more 
 stimulating, sorts of food. The best and finest food is given 
 to the grubs or larvae from which are to be developed the 
 future queens, both those in the ordinary royal cells and 
 also those working-bee larvaa which in case of the failure of 
 real queens shall be brought up as supplementary. 
 
 The constant cleaning and brushing of the queen, and of 
 the working-bees returned from foraging, also takes much 
 time and trouble, as well as the keeping clean of the hive 
 itself. Every kind of dirt rubbish, dead bees, wax cover- 
 ings from opened honey cells, and everything not belonging 
 to the hive is carried away from it. Further, the bees try 
 to make the interior of the hive as smooth, neat, warm, and 
 secure as possible by the use of the so-called propolis, also 
 called stopping wax and resin wax ; with this they carefully 
 stop up all the clefts and crannies, and thereby specially try 
 to guard themselves against the attacks of the terrible wax 
 moth. The interior of the individual cells is also smeared
 
 246 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 over with this substance, to make them firmer and more 
 resistant ; it is not like other wax, manufactured by the 
 bees, but is collected from the resinous parts of trees and 
 brought to the hivo. F. Huber saw bees scraping off the 
 propolis with their jaws from the legs of their comrades 
 returning from outside, and hasten with it to the scarcely 
 completed cells.* The store was here divided among a 
 number of workers, which at once busied themselves with 
 the suitable use of it. They first smoothed and planed the 
 inner surface of the cells with their mandibles, freeing it 
 from every unevenness. One of the woi-kers then approached 
 the heap of propolis near them, pulled a little thread out 
 of the resinous mass with its jaws, tore it off by suddenly 
 throwing back its head, grasped it with the claws of its 
 fore-feet, and turned back with it into the cell which it had 
 prepared. Without more ado it laid the thread between the 
 two walls which it had smoothed, and on the floor of the 
 corner made by them with each other. The thread proving 
 too long, it bit a piece off. Placing it carefully with its 
 fore-feet between the walls, it pressed it firmly^ with its 
 mandibles into the corner which it wished to cover. As it 
 was now seen that the band was too broad and heavy it was 
 gnawed, and pieces carried away until it fitted. When the 
 task was complete, the observer marvelled at the exactitude 
 with which the little ribbon was fitted between the two walls 
 of the cell. But the worker waited no longer over it, but 
 turned to another part of the cell to treat the propolis 
 remaining over in like fashion. Other bees completed the 
 task which this one had begun, so that soon all the walls 
 and openings of the cells were framed with bands of propolis. 
 By this process the wax cells, which are very soft and 
 fragile when they come from their makers' hands, are clearly 
 rendered more firm, and this is done without using too much 
 
 * The expression "saw" may perhaps surprise those who know- 
 that Franz Huber, the famous historian of the bees (born in Geneva, 
 1750, d. 1831), and the father of Peter Huber, the distinguished 
 observer of the ants, became blind in youth owing to severe study. 
 None the less he so successfully followed his remarkable study of 
 bees by aid of his wife, a devoted companion (Franz Burnens), his 
 son, and a few other friends, that his work, which was published in 
 1794, is to-day the chief source of information for all who employ 
 themselves deeply with bee-life although much contained therein 
 needs correction.
 
 THE BEE NATION. 247 
 
 of the wax, which is both costly and difficult to make. 
 The fastening of the combs to the walls of the hive is also 
 generally done by help of propolis, or of a mixture of pro- 
 polis and wax. In the same way combs over-weighted with 
 lioney and threatening to break from their upper attach- 
 ments, are so well supported and fastened with strung bands 
 of propolis above and at the sides, that the peril is smoothed 
 away. F. Huber saw such a comb which had really fallen 
 down, but had kept in a proper position with respect to the 
 other combs, at a time when there was not sufficient store of 
 wax to fill up the empty space with new cells, fastened by 
 such bauds to the nearest comb on one side, and on the 
 other to the neighboring glass wall of the hive. They also 
 took warning from this unpleasant experience, and fastened 
 the remaining combs to each other in similar fashion, and 
 strengthened their upper points of attachment with old wax 
 clearly to ward off from these a similar misfortune. " I 
 admit," says the generally instinct-believing Huber in 
 relating this, " that I was unable to avoid a feeling of 
 astonishment in presence of a fact from which the purest 
 reason seemed to shine out." 
 
 A similar and even yet more striking observation is pub- 
 lished by Dr. Brown in his work on bees (quoted by Watson, 
 " The Reasoning Power in Animals," 1867, p. 448). A 
 too heavily weighted comb had fallen down in the 
 middle of the hive, and pressed against its neighbor, at the 
 same time blocking up the passage. This accident caused 
 great excitement in the colony, and brought about the 
 following results. The bees first bound the two combs 
 together with horizontal cross-pieces, and then gnawed away 
 sufficient wax and honey to leave the passage free. The 
 fallen comb and its neighbor were then fastened to the window 
 with propolis, and the original cross-pieces taken away 
 again, as being no longer necessary ! The whole operation 
 took about ten days. Men under similar circumstances 
 could not have acted more prudently. The bee-master has 
 many opportunities of remarking similar reasonable actions 
 during the building in the interior of the hive. Dr. Dzierzon, 
 of Carlsmarkt, the very experienced keeper of bees, and 
 the discoverer of their parthenogenesis, who merits so many 
 thanks for the exhibition of the inner relations of the bee- 
 hive by the introduction of movable comb-boxes, thought 
 
 R 2
 
 248 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 himself justified in saying in an essay on the utility of 
 bee-keeping : " The cleverness of the bees in repairing per- 
 fectly injuries to their cells and combs, in supporting on 
 pillars pieces of their building accidentally knocked down by 
 a hasty push, in fastening them with rivets and bringing 
 everything again into proper unity, making hanging bridges, 
 chains and ladders, compels our astonishment." 
 
 The propolis is lastly used for an air-tight cover over 
 creatures which have invaded the hive and which the bees 
 have killed, but which are too large for them to carry away, 
 such as mice, slugs, moths, etc., and in this fashion are pre- 
 vented the injurious results to the hive which would follow 
 the putrefaction of the corpses. For impure air within the 
 hive is that which the bees must above all things fear 
 and avoid, for with the pressure together of so many indi- 
 viduals in a comparatively small space, it would not only be 
 directly harmful to individual bees, but would produce among 
 them dangerous diseases. They therefore also never void 
 their excrements within, but always outside the hive. While 
 this is very easy to do in summer, it is, on the contrary, very 
 difficult in the winter, when the bees sit close together and 
 generally motionless in the upper part of the hive, and when, 
 from impure air and foul evaporations, as well as from bad 
 and insufficient food, dysentery-like diseases break out 
 among them and often carry off the whole community in a 
 brief space of time. In such cases they utilise the first fine 
 day to relieve themselves, and in the spring they take a long 
 general cleansing flight. But they also know how to take 
 advantage of special circumstances so as to perform the 
 process of purification in the way least harmful to the hive. 
 Herr Heinrich Lehr, of Darmstadt, a bee-keeping friend of 
 the author, has sent the following communication : During 
 an epidemic of dysentery in winter, from which most of his 
 hives suffered (as the bees were no longer able to retain their 
 excrements) one hive suffered less than the others. Exact 
 investigation showed that this hive was soiled all over at the 
 back with the excrement of the bees, and that the inmates 
 had here made a kind of drain. On this spot a little opening 
 had been made by the falling off of the covering clay, which 
 led directly to the upper part of the hive, where the bees 
 were accustomed to sit together during the winter. This 
 excellent opportunity, whereby they could reach in the
 
 THE BEE NATION. 249 
 
 shortest way an otherwise difficult object and one rendered 
 complicated by circumstances, did not escape them. 
 
 The already often-mentioned love of cleanliness is a main 
 characteristic of bees, both in reference to their dwelling 
 and their persons. On entering a new dwelling the first 
 thing they do is to cleanse it in the most careful manner 
 from dust, dirt, wood-shavings, straws, etc. During the 
 winter their body generally becomes covered with yellow- 
 brown grease, which hinders their movements and injures their 
 health. On the first fine day in .spring, therefore, they first 
 clean themselves, partly with their own hands, partly, in 
 places which they cannot reach, by the help of their com- 
 panions, and then, as already said, they cleanse and brush 
 the interior of the hive with wonderful care, throw out old 
 and hardened pollen, carry out mould and dead bees, etc., etc. 
 That they also bury the latter appears from an observation 
 quoted by Watson (loc. cit, p. 453) from the Glasgow Herald 
 ("Notes and Queries," 3rd ser., vol. iii., p. 314). The 
 correspondent writes: " While I was walking with a friend 
 in a garden near Falkirk, we noticed two bees, coming out 
 of a beehive, which were carrying between them the corpse 
 of a dead comrade and flew away with it to about ten yards 
 distance. We followed them and saw them search for a 
 suitable hole at the side of a sandy road, carefully push in 
 the dead body, head foremost, and finally place above it two 
 small stones. They then watched for about a minute before 
 they flew away." 
 
 The correspondent goes on to say that he had never until 
 then had the opportunity of observing the- burial of a bee, 
 but that he had seen a wasp, which had invaded a beehive, 
 after it had been killed, dragged out by the bees and laid 
 down on the other side of a little brick wall, after they had 
 flown over it with the dead body. It is also a very common 
 observation that the bodies of dead bees are not left in the 
 vicinity of the hive, but are carried away to a certain 
 distance. 
 
 Very interesting, and closely connected with this cha- 
 racteristic of cleanliness, is the conduct of the so-called 
 ventilating-bees, which have to take care that in summer or 
 hot weather the air necessary for the respiration of the bees 
 in the interior of the hive is renewed, and the too high tem- 
 perature cooled down. This latter precaution is necessary, not
 
 250 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 only on account of the bees working within the hive, to 
 whom, as already said, a temperature risen beyond a certain 
 point would be intolerable, but also to guard against the 
 melting or softening of the wax. The bees charged with the 
 care of the ventilation divide themselves into rows and 
 stages in regular order through all parts of the hive, and by 
 swift fanning of their wings send little currents of air in 
 such fashion that a powerful stream or change of air passes 
 through all parts of the hive. Other bees stand at the 
 mouth of the hive, which fan in the same way and con- 
 siderably accelerate the wind from within. The current of 
 air thus caused is so strong that little bits of paper hung in 
 front of the mouth are rapidly moved, and that according to 
 F. Huber, a lighted match is extinguished. The wind can 
 be distinctly felt if the hand be held in front. 
 
 The motion of the wings of the ventilating bees is so 
 rapid that it is scarcely perceptible, and Huber saw some 
 bees working their wings in this way for five and twenty 
 minutes. When they are tired they are relieved by others. 
 Accordiog to Jesse the bees in very hot weather, inspite of 
 all their efforts, are unable to sufficiently lower the tempera- 
 ture, and prevent the melting of some of the wax ; they then 
 get into a condition of great excitement, and it is dangerous 
 to approach them. In such a case they also try to mend 
 matters by a number leaving the hive and settling in large 
 masses on its surface, so as to protect it as much as possible 
 from the scorching rays of the sun. 
 
 Although the described plan of ventilation is remarkable 
 enough in itself, it is yet more remarkable in that it is 
 clearly only the result of bee-keeping and is evoked by this 
 misfortune. For there could be no need of such ventilation 
 for bees in a state of nature, whose dwellings in hollow trees 
 and clefts of rocks leave nothing to be desired as to roomi- 
 ness and airiness, while in the narrow artificial hive this 
 need at once comes out strongly. In fact the fanning of 
 the bees almost entirely ceased when Huber brought them into 
 large hives five feet high, in which there was plenty of air. It 
 follows therefore that the fanning and ventilating can have 
 absolutely nothing to do with an inborn tendency or instinct, 
 but have been gradually evoked by necessity, thought, and 
 experience. 
 
 One of the most important duties of the bees employed
 
 THE BEE NATION. 251 
 
 within the hive is the building and arranging of the wax 
 cells, to which only cursory allusion has as yet been made : 
 these serve partly as cradles for the brood, partly for the 
 reception and preservation of the collected provisions. The 
 main principle here i*, as many cells as possible with the 
 greatest possible economy in wax, space, and labor and this 
 is realised by the bees in a manner that deserves our deepest 
 admiration, and has indeed awakened the surprise of all 
 observers. For as bees possess no mathematical and 
 geometrical knowledge, and have also no need thereof, they 
 have by practice, experience, and inheritance, aided by the 
 principle of natural selection, gradually reached that kind 
 and fashion of building which seems most h'tted to their 
 purpose. Each single comb or layer consists of two rows 
 or divisions of cells arranged closely side by side ; each cell 
 with its six sides and its pyramidal floor is so arranged with 
 respect to its fellows that the floors of one set make the 
 roofs of those opposiie them in the comb, and the sides serve 
 as the boundaries of the neighboring cells; thus each wall, 
 both of sides and floor, serves for two cells. But as this 
 double duty imposed on the already thin walls, might easily 
 give rise to the danger of breaking, the prudent insects 
 make a suitable strengthening by surrounding the open 
 edges of each cell with a thickening of w r ax, Justin the same 
 way that tinkers put a rim of tin round the edges of tinned 
 ironware to make them stronger and less liable to bend. 
 
 It is very difficult to watch the bees during the absolute 
 building of the cells. They are so eager to help each other, 
 and press so closely together, constantly relieving each other, 
 that there is seldom any opportunity of watching a single 
 operation separately. But it can be seen that their man- 
 dibles are the chiet instruments with which they spread out 
 and smooth the wax. While some bring the six-sided cells 
 to their normal length, others are busy laying the founda- 
 tions of new ones : when the first hexagonal cells are 
 shaped the others seem to take the same shape of their own 
 accord. The wax left over in first forming them is carefully 
 scratched off with the teeth, made into a little ball about the 
 size of a pin's head and used elsewhere. 
 
 All the cells have not the same shape, as would be the 
 case if the bees in building worked according to a perfectly 
 instinctive and unchangeable plan. There are very mani-
 
 252 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 fold changes and irregularities. Almost in every comb 
 irregular and unfinished cells are to be found, especially 
 where the several divisions of a comb come together. The 
 small architects do not begin their comb from a single centre, 
 but begin building from many different points, so as to 
 progress as rapidly as possible, and so that the greatest 
 number may work simultaneously ; they therefore build 
 from above downwards, in the shape of flat truncated cones 
 or hanging pyramids, and these several portions are after- 
 wards united together during the winter building. At these 
 lines of junction it is impossible to avoid irregular cells be- 
 tween the press< d together or unnaturally lengthened ones. 
 The same is true more or less of the passage cells, which 
 are made to unite the large cells of the so-called drone-wax 
 with the smaller ones of the working-bees, and which are 
 generally placed in two or three rows. The cells also which 
 they usually build from the combs to the glass walls of their 
 Lives, in order to hold them up, show somewhat irregular 
 forms. Finally, in places where special conditions of the 
 situation do not otherwise permit, it may be obseryed that 
 the bees, far from clinging obstinately to their plan, very 
 well understand how to accommodate themselves to circum- 
 stances not only in cell-building but also in making their 
 combs. F. Huber tried to mislead their instinct, or rather 
 to put to the proof their reason and cleverness in every 
 possible way, but they always emerged triumphant from the 
 ordeal. For instance, he put bees in a hive the floor and roof 
 of which were made of glass, that is of a body which the bees 
 use very unwillingly for the attachment of their combs, on 
 account of its smoothness. Thus the possibility of building 
 as usual from above downwards, and also from below 
 upwards was taken away from them ; they had no point of 
 support save the perpendicular walls of their dwelling. They 
 thereupon built on one of these walls a regular stratum of cells, 
 from which, building sideways, they tried to carry the comb to 
 the opposite side of the hive. To prevent this Huber covered 
 that side al.-o with glass. But what way out of the difficulty 
 was found by the clever insects? Instead of building 
 further in the projected direction, they bent the comb round 
 at the extreme point, and carried it at a right angle towards 
 one of the inner sides of the hive which was not covered 
 with gla's, and there fastened it. The form and dimensions
 
 THK BEE NATION. 253 
 
 of the cells must necessarily have been altered thereby, and 
 the arrangement of their work at the angle must have been 
 quite different from usual. They made the cells of the 
 convex side so much broader than those of the concave that 
 they had a diameter two or three times as great, and yet 
 they managed to join them properly with the others. They 
 also did not wait to bend the comb until they came to the 
 glass itself, but recognised the difficulty beforehand. 
 
 Huber further says that the bees can build their hex- 
 agonal cells on glass or wood instead of on a floor of wax, the 
 floors of the cells being then necessarily flat instead of 
 pyramidal. These cells with flat floors are less regular than 
 the ordinary ones. Many of the cell edges are not angular, 
 and the dimensions are often not exact. Notwithstanding, 
 a more or less definite hexagonal shape can be recognised, 
 even in those which depart most from the regular form. 
 
 The lower free end of a completed comb is also always 
 finished off with a thicker border of wax with irregular cell- 
 commencements. If the bees want to build on to this they 
 first scrape off the rim of wax arid the irregular cells, and 
 then begin to carry the comb further. Pieces of comb 
 hung like so-called screens are also ingeniously used by the 
 bees for further building, but only after they have removed 
 the injured rows of cells of the divided walls. But if such 
 pieces are soiled, or seem to them to be otherwise unsuitable, 
 they are torn down and a quite new comb is built. In the 
 same way they make no difficulty, when they want to breed 
 drones, about pulling down the working - bees' cells and 
 making drones' cells instead. Thus we find everywhere a 
 perfectly clear understanding of the condition of affairs, arid 
 an equally clear and definite adaptation of action according 
 to circumstances. 
 
 These and many other observations show, as Huber says, 
 " how ductile is the instinct of bees, arid how readily it 
 adapts itself to the place, the circumstance, and the needs of 
 the community." 
 
 " Man must really be more stupid than a beast," says E. 
 Menault (" L'Intelligence des Animaux," Paris, 1872) after 
 describing similar proceedings of bees, especially as regards 
 economy of space, " if he does not recognise in this conduct 
 calculation, comparison, reflection, and reason." 
 
 Bees, like ants and like men, are ever subject to error, and
 
 254 THE UEE NATION 
 
 often do things badly which afterwards have to be set right. 
 Huber saw a worker building with the wax at her disposal 
 on that which its comrades had already put together. But 
 it was not arranged in the same way, and made a corner 
 with the first. " Another bee perceived it, pulled down the bad 
 work before our eyes, and gave it to the firot in the requisite 
 order so that it might exactly follow the original direction." 
 Other observers, as for instance Darwin, have seen similar 
 cases. " It was really curious," says Darwin (" Origin of 
 Species," p 232), " to note in cases of difficulty, as when 
 two pieces of comb met at an angle, how often the bees 
 would pull clown and rebuild in different ways the same cell, 
 sometimes recurring to a shape which they had at first 
 rejected."
 
 THE BEE NATION. 255' 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 ACTIVITY ABROAD. 
 
 LESS complex, but heavier than the work within the hive 
 is that of the outside or foreign department. It con- 
 sists almost entirely of the important business of collecting 
 food for the young and for the hive, as well as the provisions 
 necessary for the support of the community during the long 
 winter season ; the honey or nectar from the flowers is 
 carried in a crop-like extension of the O3sophagus, the pollen 
 heaped in a shovel-like hollowed-out basin in the hind-legs, 
 and brought home in the form of round pellets. The bees 
 are sometimes seen so covered with pollen as to be scarcely 
 recognisable. With wonderful rapidity they pull the pollen 
 out of the flowers with their fore-legs, divide it with their 
 middle-legs, and then with these heap it on to their hind-legs 
 and knead it together. It is very worthy of note that in each 
 flight they collect only one kind of pollen and bring it home 
 unchanged, and by this means it is possible for the house- 
 bees, as before related, to sort and carry it into different 
 cells. This habit was remarked and described by Aristotle. 
 The nectar of flowers and all liquid foods are sucked up by 
 the proboscis, which they push into the nectaries. In many 
 of the flowers visited by them the nectaries are at the bottom 
 of a tube which is partly covered and closed by the stamens. 
 The bees find it out none the less, and if they cannot push 
 the proboscis through the natural opening, they bite a hole, 
 like the humble-bee, at the base of the corolla or even of the 
 calyx, so as to be able to reach with their proboscis the 
 place wherein nature has put the honey-glaud. As the jaws 
 of the bee are far weaker and more flexible than those of the 
 humble bee, the former very gladly makes use, wherever it is 
 possible, of the holes made by the latter in order to reach the 
 honey, and only falls back on self-help when the other fails. 
 On the other hand Andrenetcc and mason-bees, which also
 
 256 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 hnunt such flowers, never utilise the holes made by humble 
 and honey-bees, but try to get into the tube of the corolla 
 from within a fact which shows that these insects lack the 
 sharpness of the honey-bee. 
 
 The collection of nectar is performed with great speed 
 and cleverness, for we see the busy creatures fly swiftly from 
 flower to flower. Arrived at home, to the interior of the 
 hive, the flight or foraging bee deposits her outer and inner 
 loads as quickly as possible, so as to return to the task of 
 collecting, when, as before said, the provisions thus brought 
 are properly divided and further worked up by the home- 
 bees. If the foraging bee meets a hungry comrade on her 
 way home, the hungry bee is sometimes seen, as with the 
 ants, to communicate its want to its friend by touching its 
 head with its antennae, whereupon the latter opens its mouth 
 and by regurgitating or disgorging the contents of the crop 
 gives it food. Also when anything has happened at the 
 hive so that the gathered provision of honey cannot be got at, 
 or when such rich booty has been found that the superfluity 
 cannot be taken in, similar scenes of mutual division may 
 be observed, just as though, in order to provide against all 
 the accidents of the future, the food at their disposal was 
 equally divided among all. 
 
 In some wonderful way, in spite of the great number 
 of workers, there is never the least press or the least dis- 
 order in going into or out of the hive. This may be 
 explained either by each troop having special leaders which 
 keep order, or by the bees which guard the entrance of the 
 hive and have to warn off any unauthorised intruder, pre- 
 serving order among the inflying and outflying bands. The 
 bees maintain an efficient guard day and night during 
 the warm season of the year at the gate of their dwelling, 
 and it has to discharge many weighty functions. No one 
 can penetrate into the hive without being first carefully 
 touched and examined by this guard. As a rule, only 
 inhabitants of the hive are let in, and all stranger bees, 
 which are easily distinguished by the smell, are sent back. 
 If a strange queen appears, the guard seize her on the spot. 
 They grasp her feet and wings with their mandibles, and 
 shut her up in so narrow a circle that she is unable to move 
 and there can be no more talk about going into the hive. 
 It only seldom happens that a queen, who has lost her way
 
 THE BEE NATION. 257 
 
 coming back from her wedding flight, penetrates by a badly 
 placed or carelessly guarded mouth, iuto a strange hive, 
 where she meets with inevitable death by hunger, smothering, 
 or poison. The so-called robber bees, of which we shall 
 have to speak again later, also sometimes succeed in master- 
 ing the guard and intruding into the hive by craft, strength, 
 or fraud. But, as a rule, the latter are very much on the 
 alert against these "thieves and highwaymen, and very 
 exceptionally let strange bees pass, and then only when they 
 are laden with honey and pollen, and the guard are, there- 
 fore, convinced that they are not going to steal. In other 
 cases, and when they have been warned and excited by pre- 
 vious burglaries, they rise several feet to meet the robber 
 bees in the air, and try to kill them. They may then often 
 be seen falling to the ground wrestling with each other. 
 Only very young bees from strange hives, which have flown 
 out and cannot again find the way to their own houses, are 
 sometimes admitted, apparently from compassion, even 
 though they are generally unladen. Even members of the 
 hive during the foraging season are, as a rule, admitted only 
 when they are laden, whereas the scouts returning from their 
 expeditions are let in, as a matter of course, without carrying 
 anything. 
 
 This foreign policy, as it is called, is not so strictly carried 
 out by all bees as the bee-fathers might desire. Here, as in 
 human policy, there is a good deal more connivance than is 
 quite to be wished for in the interest of the community. 
 But whether personal views, family and business connexions, 
 hopes of advancement, fear of great folk, favoritism, etc., 
 play a similar part to that they play among " reason "- 
 endowed creatures, I do not venture to decide, though I think 
 it very improbable. 
 
 The guards are chiefly on the watch against actual enemies 
 of bees, or strange insects which try to penetrate into the 
 nest. This happens most often by night, when the quiet 
 prevalent in the hive favors approach, and the sweet scent 
 proceeding therefrom attracts the foe. The instant that any 
 strange insect comes into contact with the antennae of the 
 night-guard, the latter fly up, and instead of the short, 
 broken hum that is heard when all is at peace, emit a very 
 different sharp, hissing note, which is repeated by all the 
 guards, and at once rouses the inmates of the hive. A
 
 258 TIIK BEE NATION. 
 
 number of working bees rush out and help to attack the 
 foe. 
 
 Against such enemies as the guards are not able to drive 
 away such as the large death's-head hawk moth (Sphinx 
 Alrnpns), which is a great lover of honey, and in many years 
 and places (such as Hungary) much infests the beehives 
 the clever insects manage to protect themselves by fastening 
 up, or rather narrowing, the entrance of the hive with the 
 propolis or propolis-wax, so that only the small bees can 
 pass in and out, while passage is impossible to larger crea- 
 tures. But they also defend themselves against smaller 
 insects in the same way, because a narrow opening is easier 
 to defend than a large. " I possess," says Jesse (" Gleanings 
 in Natural History," vol. i., p. 21), " a regular fortress 
 wall, built out of propolis, which one of my hives had placed 
 in front of its mouth, in order to defend itself better against 
 the wasps. With the help of this wall a smaller number of 
 bees were able to defend the entrance." 
 
 If, however, a time comes when this narrow opening is no 
 longer sufficient for the bees themselves, as, for instance, 
 durinjr a successful foraging, or when the hive is very 
 populous, the formerly useful protection is torn down. 
 Huber observed that a wall built in 1804 against the death's- 
 head hawk moth was destroyed in 1805. In the latter year 
 there were no death's-head moths, nor were any seen during 
 the following. But in the autumn of 1807 a large number 
 again appeared, and the bees at once protected themselves 
 against their enemies. The bulwark was destroyed again in 
 1808. 
 
 It has already been said that animals, such as mice, slugs, 
 etc., that have penetrated into the hive, are slain and then 
 covered with propolis. Such a proceeding, however, was 
 impossible with respect to a snail which, as Reaumur relates 
 (Kirby and Spence, " Entomology," vol. ii., p. 229), took a 
 journey over the sides of a hive lined with glass, its hard 
 shell protecting it against the stings of the bees. The latter 
 were equal to the occasion. They smeared round the edges 
 of the shell with wax and resin, and fastened down the 
 intruder to the wall of the hive in such fashion that he died 
 from hunger or want of air! Sometimes animals which 
 are so large that burying them in propolis is attended with 
 difficulties, or that they would poison the hut in spite of it
 
 THE BEE NATION. 259 
 
 us, for example, mice are gnawed to the bones, so that only 
 their neatly prepared skeletons are found in the hive. The 
 gnawed-off flesh, however, is not, as some have thought, 
 eaten by the bees, but is carried out of the hive. 
 
 The guards have the further official duty of forwarding 
 into the hive all news from without, and, according to de 
 Fravicre, they have a number of different notes in their 
 voices, arising from the stigmata of the thorax and abdomen. 
 As soon as a bee arrives with important news it is at once 
 surrounded, emits two or three shrill notes, and taps a com- 
 rade with its long, flexible, and very sensitive feelers, or 
 antennae, which possess no less than twelve or thirteen 
 joints. The friend passes on the news in similar fashion, 
 and the intelligence soon traverses the whole hive. If it be 
 of an agreeable kind if, for instance, it concerns the dis- 
 covery of a store of sugar, or of honey, or of a flowering 
 meadow all remains orderly. But, on the other hand, 
 great excitement arises if the news presages some threaten- 
 ing danger, or if strange animals are menacing invasion 
 of the hive. It seems that such intelligence is conveyed 
 first to the queen, as to the most important person in the 
 State. 
 
 This leads us naturally to the language, or the means of 
 communication among bees, which language, although in- 
 comprehensible to us, is clearly capable of ready and distinct 
 expressions. It is both a spoken and a gesture language, 
 and there can be no doubt that by its aid the bees under- 
 stand not only generalities, but also very distinct and very 
 different things. The discovery of a treasure of sugar or 
 other food, in a pleasant place by a single bee has at once 
 the result that in a short time a whole troop of hungry bees 
 arrive thereat, and this can manifestly be owing only to a 
 communication made by the first bee to its companions. 
 According to Landois (loc. at., p. 153), if a saucer of honey 
 is placed before a beehive, a few bees first come out, which 
 emit a cry of tilt, tut, tut. This note is rather shrill, and 
 resembles the cry of an attacked bee. Hereupon a large 
 number of bees come out of the hive to collect the offered 
 honey. When, in spring, the bee-master wants to make his 
 bees notice the water placed near the hive they need the 
 water when the care of the young begins, for preparing the 
 bee-bread so that they may not be compelled to bring it
 
 260 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 from a distance, lie need only hold a little stick smeared 
 with honey at the mouth of the hive, and carry to the water 
 the first few bees which settle on it. These few are enough 
 to bring the neighborhood of the water and its exact place 
 to the knowledge of the whole colony on their return. Ilerr 
 L. Brofft relates, in the " Zoological Gardens " (XVlIf. 
 Year, No. 1, p. 67), that a poor and a rich hive stood next 
 each other on his father's bee-stand, and the latter suddenly 
 lost its queen. Before the owner had come to a decision 
 thereupon the bees of the two hives came to a mutual under- 
 standing as to the condition of their two States. The dwellers 
 in the queenless hive, with their stores of provisions, went 
 over into the less populous or poorer hive, after they had 
 assured themselves, by many influential deputations, as to 
 the state of the interior of the poor hive, and, as appeared, 
 especially as to the presence of an egg-laying queen ! 
 
 The best means of mutual communication among bees, 
 as among ants, lies certainly in their feelers or antennae, with 
 which they touch each other in many various ways. As 
 the feelers are indispensable to them in all their work for 
 arrangement and testing, no greater injury can be done 
 them than cutting these off. The working bees subjected to 
 such an operation became incapable of all work, and gene- 
 rally leave the hive in which they can no longer be of use. 
 The drones also can no longer find their way about the 
 passages to seek their food. They, therefore, also leave 
 the hive in the darkness of which they have no guide. The 
 queens lose with their feelers not only the consciousness of 
 their maternal duties and the capability of discharging them, 
 but also their feelings of mutual hate and jealousy. 
 Antennae-less queens pass closely by each other without 
 recognition, and even the working bees seem to share 
 their indifference, as though they were only apprised of 
 danger menacing their nation by the excitement of their 
 queen. 
 
 The best way to observe the power of communication 
 possessed by bees by means of their interchange of touches, 
 is to take away the queen from a hive. In a little time, about 
 an hour afterwards, the sad event will be noticed by a small 
 part of the community, and these will stop working and run 
 hastily about over the comb. But this only concerns part of 
 the hive, and the side of a single comb. The excited bees, how-
 
 THE BEE NATION. 261 
 
 ever, soon leave the little circle in which they at first revolved, 
 and when they meet their comrades they cross their antennas 
 and lightly touch the others with them. The bees which 
 have received some impression from this touch, now become 
 uneasy in their turn, and convey their uneasiness and distress 
 in the same way to the other parts of the dwelling. The 
 disorder increases rapidly, spreads to the other side of the 
 comb, and at last to all the people. Then arises the general 
 confusion before described. 
 
 Huber tested this communication by the antennae by a 
 striking experiment. He divided a hive into two quite 
 separate parts by a partition wall, whereupon great excite- 
 ment arose in the division in which there was no queen, and 
 this was only quieted when some workers began to build 
 royal cells. He then divided a hive in similar fashion by a 
 trellis, through which the bees could pass their feelers. 
 In this case all remained quiet, and no attempt was made 
 to build royal cells : the queen could also be clearly seen 
 crossing her antennae with the workers on the other side of 
 the trellis. 
 
 The bees, of course, make the greatest use of their feelers 
 in the darkness of the hive or at night, while during the 
 day and in the light they are guided by their rather short 
 sight. In order to be convinced of this it is only necessary 
 to follow their movements when they are on guard at the 
 mouth of their hive on a moonlight night, to prevent the 
 intrusion of the dangerous wax-moths fluttering above. It 
 is very interesting to observe with what cunning the moths 
 know how to utilise to the disadvantage of the bees the fact 
 that they can only see things by a clear light, and what 
 tactics the latter employ to discover and drive away their 
 destructive enemies. Like watchful sentinels, the bees parade 
 round their abode with constantly extended antennae, moving 
 them to right and left, and woe to the moth which comes 
 in contact with them ! But the moth tries to slip past them 
 by carefully using every effort to avoid touching these 
 sensitive organs. 
 
 Apparently the feelers are also connected with the exceed- 
 ingly fine scent of the bees, which enables them, wonderful 
 as it may seem, to distinguish friend and foe, and to recog- 
 nise the members of their own hive, among the thousands 
 and thousands of bees swarming around and to drive back
 
 2G2 TflE BEE NATION. 
 
 from the entrance stranger or robber-bees.* The bee- 
 masters, therefore, when they want two separate colonies or 
 the members of them to unite in one hive, sprinkle water 
 over the bee?, or stupefy them with some fumigating sub- 
 stance, so as to make them to a certain extent insensible to 
 smell, in order to attain their object. It is always possible 
 to unite colonies by making the bees smell of some strong- 
 smelling stuff such as musk. 
 
 The remarkable memory of the bee is undoubtedly con- 
 nected witn the acuteness of this sense, which enables it to 
 find again the old foraging places, the tree or the flowers 
 where it has once found honey, and which make it possible 
 for it to recognise its own hive among many others. Huber 
 relates that one autumn he put some honey in a window to 
 which bees came in crowds. The honey was taken away 
 and the shutters remained shut all through the winter. 
 When they were reopened in the following spring the bees 
 also returned, although there was no honey in the window. 
 They, therefore, without doubt, remembered that which had 
 before stood there, and the lapse of many months had not 
 erased the impression. 
 
 Stickney also relates a remarkable instance of bee-memory 
 (Kirby and Spence, loc. cit,, Vol. ii., p. 591) : " Some bees 
 which had taken possession of a hole under a roof, but were 
 removed into a hive, sent out scouts from their new home to 
 this hole for several years in the swarming season. The 
 remembrance thereof must therefore have been transmitted 
 from generation to generation, or communicated." In 
 similar fashion Karl Vogt (" Lectures on Useful and Harm- 
 ful Animals "), states that ants for year after year went 
 through several inhabited streets to the store-room of a 
 chemist 600 metres off, in which stood a large vessel always 
 filled with syrup. 
 
 * According to the late investigations of Dr. 0. J. B. Wolff, in 
 Coswig, near Dresden, the smell of the bees does not lie in their feelers, 
 but in two special smell organs, situated near the pharynx, consisting 
 of 110 pairs of papillan to each of which goes a special nerve. The 
 insects allied to the bees, wasps especially, have only from 2040 
 pairs of these papillfe. So there we have the explanation of the won- 
 derfully fine smell of bees, and of many of their faculties, considered 
 inexplicable till now. Between the large compound eye and the root of 
 the upper jaw lies the mucilaginous gland of smell, which secretes the 
 mucous which increases the sensitiveness of the organ and keeps the 
 smell-papillae moist.
 
 THE BEE NATION. 263 
 
 The certainty with which bees find their way back to their 
 hive after foraging proves their excellent memory. As a 
 bullet from a gun they fly by the shortest way to their 
 beloved home, for instance, at the sudden approach of a 
 storm. This power of finding their way back has indeed a 
 limit, and it is said that bees which have gone to a greater 
 distance than half-an-hour or an hour from the hive, easily 
 lose their way on returning. Therefore they are the fonder 
 of a flowering field or similar spot the nearer it is to the 
 hive, even omitting that such nearness spares both time and 
 strength. Perhaps they fear sudden gusts of wind so much, 
 as was before mentioned, because these drive them far 
 enough away from home to make return difficult or' impos- 
 sible. Whether, as Virgil says in his famous poem on 
 bees, in places where the wind threatens them dangerously, 
 they try to save themselves by lifting little stones and bits- 
 of earth from the ground with their feet and in this way 
 oppose a better resistance to the waves of the air, just as a 
 ship laden with ballast resists the waves of the sea better 
 than an empty one is not yet certain. But let Virgil him- 
 self tell his observation in connexion with his description of 
 the bees' flight : 
 
 "At morn like soldiers pour they from their gates, 
 And not a bee behind then idle waits, 
 But when the eventide now warns to stay 
 Their gathering honey on the plain, then they 
 Fly homewards, and fresh strength from food derive. 
 A buzzing rises, and around the hive 
 And by its entrance-door they hum ; but when 
 They've settled on their couches, all is then 
 Hushed for the night's repose, and kindly sleep 
 Comes o'er their weary limbs. They ever keep 
 Close to the hive when rain-clouds low'r on high ; 
 When east winds blow ne'er do they trust the sky, 
 But safe beneath their tiny city's towers, 
 And round their home fresh water from the showers 
 They get, or short excursions try, and buoyed 
 Oflimes by little pebbles, through the void 
 Of heaven fly steadily ; so rocking boats 
 In tossing seas take ballast in." 
 
 [Loc. cit., pp. 28, 29.] 
 
 No less poetically, but more briefly and more strikingly than 
 Virgil, the great poet Shakspere describes the well-ordered 
 life and doings of the bee State, putting the following into 
 the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury (from the stand- 
 
 82
 
 264 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 point of the absolute Prince of the Church) in his drama, 
 " King Henry V." : [Act 1, Sc. 2.] 
 
 " Therefore doth heaven divide 
 The state of man in divers functions 
 Setting endeavor in continual motion ; 
 To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 
 Obedience ; for so work the honey-bees ; 
 Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach 
 The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
 They have a king and officers of sorts ; 
 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home ; 
 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 
 Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
 Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ; 
 Which pillage they with merry march bring home 
 To the tent-royal of their emperor : 
 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
 The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 
 The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 
 The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
 Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
 The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
 Delivering o'er to executors pale 
 The lazy yawning drone. I this infer 
 
 That many things, having- full reference 
 To one consent, may work continuously ; 
 As many arrows, loosed several ways, 
 Come to one mark."* 
 
 * In Virgil's and in Shakspere's times the queen was regarded as 
 king.
 
 THE BE14 NATION. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MONARCHY, SOCIALISM, AND INSTINCT. 
 
 THE "bee State has often been held up as the ideal and 
 example of the system of so-called constitutional 
 monarchy, of that system which is now prevalent in most 
 European countries, and which is regarded by some as the 
 highest political ideal, and by others as a gross political 
 sham. The Frenchman, Mandeville, as long ago as the 
 beginning of the last century, in his famous (or much 
 talked-of) " Bee Fables," held up the polity of the bees 
 as a model for human arrangements, although in a very 
 exaggerated way. 
 
 As a matter of fact there is no small resemblance between 
 the bee system and that of constitutional monarchy in so far 
 as the bees appear to lay no stress on the person of their 
 queen, and are perfectly contented so long as they have one, 
 that is someone capable of discharging the royal or rather 
 maternal duties. They change the sovereignty, as a rule, 
 easily and quickly, and thoroughly admit the well-known 
 maxim of constitutional royalty : " Le roi est mort vive le 
 rot /" (The king is dead long Jive the king!) A chiefless 
 hive, one robbed of its queen, either does homage, as already 
 described, to a fresh queen introduced into it just as to her 
 predecessor, or brings up a new sovereign by its own efforts ; 
 while a hive, left long queenless, falls into sloth and riot 
 and sooner or later perishes. The queen, since all revolves 
 round her, is the necessary centre and bond of the hive, but 
 without herself taking any personal part in the business and 
 proceedings. She therefore, in reality, exactly answers to the 
 foundation-stone of constitutionalism, and is what Napoleon I. 
 declared he would not be, in reply to the famous constitu- 
 tional reproach of Sieyes: "The prize pig of the nation." She 
 is indeed widely separated frorn her human antitype in that 
 she is not merely " representative," giving to high and low
 
 266 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 merely an empty show, but really discharges actual and 
 essential duties, without which nothing could exist. Apart 
 from this, the queen in the simplicity and uniformity of her 
 work, and in the half, though respectful, imprisonment in 
 which she is kept, is a complete contrast to her intellectually 
 and physically developed and active subjects, so that here, 
 as so often among men, it appears fair to say that stupidity or 
 narrowness, or perhaps only mediocrity, rules over reason.* 
 In any case this sovereignty, us we have seen, is much 
 restricted by the subjects themselves, and these seem to 
 indemnify themselves for the compulsory endurance of a 
 monarchical head, by observing amongst themselves, on the 
 other hand, the maxims of the most extreme democracy, 
 of the widest Socialism and Communism. One is as 
 good as another, the beautiful principle is unconditionally 
 obeyed : " One for all all for one." They have no 
 private property, no family, no private dwelling, but 
 hang in thick clumps within the common room in the 
 narrow space between the combs, taking turns for brief 
 nightly repose. The building, cleansing and* working 
 are also carried on partially all through the night. 
 All stores are common ; there is only the stiite maga- 
 zine, and all are fed from this without distinction 
 of person. If want and hunger enter, all die alike. 
 The queen here is an exception and has the privilege of 
 dying last. The bees are, however, egoists enough in such 
 times of need, or in threatening famine from continued bad 
 weather, to throw the larvae, the drone larvae first, out of 
 the cells. This also happens, on the other hand, when lack 
 of place for storing provisions occurs, owing to very success- 
 ful foraging. The larva? are. then thrown out, or the 
 nursing narrowed down to the uttermost. 
 
 * Espinas ("Animal Communities'') protests against the expressions 
 " monarchy " and " queen '' as descriptions of the bee State (although 
 these expressions have always only been used figuratively), because 
 the queen exercises no real sovereignty, but only acts as mother, and 
 the workers are not subjeets, but help as foster-mothers and nurses. 
 He forgets that in the true constitutional system the human being also 
 does not rule, but only acts as the central point of the State, which 
 lends him harmonious support, and thus has the greatest resemblance 
 to the position of the queen in the bee State. Espinas himself admits 
 this in another place, by calling a beehive a "moral organism," or a 
 real consciousness, whose leading idea, or chief part, is the mother.
 
 THE BEE NATION. 267 
 
 Tn matter of labor the bees have realised the highest ideal 
 of Communism, for it is perfectly free, voluntary and un- 
 compulsory ; each does as much or as little as seems to it 
 good. But there are no sluggards among them, for the 
 universal example acts as an incitement, and in a society 
 wherein all work idleness is really an unthinkable and im- 
 possible thing, whereas on the contrary, in the much praised 
 opposite condition of human society, the idleness of the few 
 is not only favored, but seems to be absolutely unavoidable. 
 Truly, in a communistic form of society the individual must 
 have the consciousness, as among the bees, that in so far as 
 he is a member of the whole, he is not working for others, 
 but for the common good and therewith for himself. This 
 consciousness makes the bees such busy and eager workers, 
 that many of them work themselves to death in a few weeks 
 during the foraging season, whereas working bees usually 
 reach an age of nine or ten months, so that Virgil wrote 
 truly : 
 
 " Ofttimes in a mistaken flight they tear 
 Their wings, and even genercmsly die 
 Before they drop the precious load, so high 
 The fame of getting honey, and so strong 
 The love they feel for flowers.'' 
 
 [Loc. cit. pp. 29, 30.J 
 
 The " instinct "-philosophers will probably say that this is 
 only the result of an inborn irresistible heaven-implanted 
 tendency in the little bee minds, from which the insect 
 cannot voluntarily free itself, and that we therefore cannot 
 here speak either of merit or design. But in the first place 
 it is not credible that instinct should dictate to an animal to 
 do that which will finally lead it to destruction, and secondly 
 that opinion agrees very ill with the already often-mentioned 
 experience, that the inhabitants of a queenless hive, which 
 with their queen have lost the object of their society, cease 
 to work and fall into idleness and riot. These, in conse- 
 quence of an event quite outside themselves, the connection 
 of which with their personal life-duties can only be clear to 
 them by a decided act of reflexion and deduction, have 
 entirely lost the impulse to work, formerly so strong in 
 them, and this is impossible and incredible if this tendency 
 or impulse were instinctive, or unconnected with the 
 volition of the individual. The members of queenless 
 hives scatter and die, or try to slip into other hives to get
 
 268 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 food, wherein they generally do not succeed, being sent back 
 by the guard. The Australian experience also that bees 
 taken there from Europe quite gave up storing honey for the 
 winter after the lapse of a few years, because they learned 
 by experience that the continual summer rendered such 
 action unnecessary, while they otherwise kept their hives in 
 the most perfect order is irreconcilable with the idea of an 
 inborn or irresistible work instinct. 
 
 This opinion comes to sad shipwreck on the so-called 
 robber bees, which try to lighten or quite to spare their 
 labor by falling in crowds upon other already-filled hives, 
 mastering the guards and the inhabitants, robbing the hives 
 and carrying off the stores thereof to their own dwelling. 
 If this plan has succeeded once or more, they, like men, find 
 more pleasure in robbery and in plunder than in their own 
 work, and become at last formidable robber states. Single 
 bees also go out robbing, and try to penetrate into a strange 
 hive undiscovered and in cautious fashion, showing by their 
 whole behavior that they are perfectly conscious of their 
 bad conduct, whereas the workers belonging to the, hive fly 
 in quickly and openly in full consciousness of their right. 
 If the solitary robbers and sweet-stealers succeed in their 
 attempt they lead other bees from their hive into the same 
 theft. These are always followed by more tempted ones, 
 so that finally the robber state is formed. The bee-masters, 
 therefore, in order to avoid injury from robbery, are obliged to 
 put an end to the mischief as soon as possible, before the bad 
 example has infected others. The inhabitants of an attacked 
 hive naturally defend themselves with all their strength, so 
 that the burglary generally is only successful in sick or weak 
 hives. In powerful, well-organised communities, the robbers 
 are, as a rule, flung back by the guards and pursued. If, 
 however, they find a hive from the mouth of which they are 
 not driven away, but are let to slip in, they eat the honey, 
 carry it off to their hive, manifest their delight at their own 
 entrance, and offer their proboscides to their sisters to let 
 them taste the new store. They soon return in increased 
 numbers and more eager than before, and try to get into the 
 hive in every way, by crevices and so on. Arrived within, 
 they try before all else to kill the queen, for they well know 
 that the assailed hive will then lose unity and power of 
 resistance, and that the inhabitants will weakly surrender
 
 THE BEE NATION. 269 
 
 on the death of their leader. Bees from other hives also 
 join the invaders, and the end is thorough robbery and 
 plunder, which is all the more complete as the owners of the 
 plundered hive when they find that all is lost and that no 
 further resistance is possible, generally themselves join the 
 thieves, tear down the cells, plunder them, and then go off 
 to the robber-hive.* When the assailed hive is emptied 
 the next ones are attacked, and if no effective resistance is 
 made are robbed in similar fashion, so that in this way a 
 whole bee-stand may be gradually destroyed. Sometimes 
 the resistance of healthy hives fails owing to the robbers, 
 from visiting the same flowers or the same fields, having 
 the same smell as the bees of the attacked hive, and there- 
 fore not being recognised at once as thieves. 
 
 They sometimes then become so bold that they post them- 
 selves in front of the hive, often stop the bees returning 
 from collecting, which, as a rule, or very often, re*t for a 
 brief siesta on the stand ere entering the hive, and partly by 
 threats, partly by force, deprive them of their load of sweets. 
 E. Weygandt, who personally observed this interesting kind 
 of robbery, and described it in the journal The Bee (1877, 
 No. 1.), called it "milking," and states that this milking 
 has been observed by many other bee-masters. The milk- 
 ing bee, according to him, gains the further advantage that 
 with the honey of the milked one it has also contracted its 
 smell, and partly owing to this, and partly to the fact that it 
 arrives loaded, it is admitted without difficulty into the hive, 
 and can prosecute its thefts. The robber bees in this 
 resemble swindlers who dress themselves like policemen, and 
 carry out their schemes under this mask. Sometimes the 
 bee-masters defend themselves against robbery by putting 
 musk in a plundered hive. The robbers then contract the 
 musk-odor, and when they go back to their hive they are 
 regarded by their own comrades as strangers, in consequence 
 
 * Siebold saw the same kind of thing with the French wasp (Polistes 
 gallica), of which mention -will be made further on. Stranger wasps 
 attacked one of its nests, tore the larvae out of their cells and carried 
 them home as booty. When the real owners of the nest saw that 
 resistance was vain, they followed the example of the robbers and 
 murdered their own children. (In Graber, loc. cit. ii., p. 134.) 
 " Which is this," the reporter adds to the story, " ' instinct ' or ' un- 
 conscious intelligence ' ? "
 
 270 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 of the smell, and are driven away or killed. Most of the rob- 
 beries take place out of and soon after the collecting season, 
 because the bees flying about and accustomed to forage can 
 find no more food nor provisions, and therefore seek other 
 opportunities of gain, be they fair or foul. 
 
 In addition to these robberies from their own race, there are 
 a large number of somewhat similar opportunities of theft, and 
 the bees thoroughly understand how to utilise these cases 
 with great craftiness. Instinct is here quite blameless, for 
 most of these incidents are quite accidental, and brought 
 about first by man's industry. The sugar plantations in 
 Cuba (and in other places, as in the neighborhood of Stettin, 
 where there are many sugar refineries, and where it is 
 asserted that the bees know very well how to distinguish the 
 different kinds of sugar) suffer no little injury on account of 
 the visits paid by the bees to the refineries. Where such 
 resources are open to them all the year through, as in Bar- 
 badoes, they finally lose their original instinct of work, and 
 disuse the collecting of honey. They also do not hesitate 
 to take the wheat or rye meal placed as food by the bee- 
 master in front of the hives in spring, before the flowers 
 begin to bloom, and turn it to account as a substitute for 
 the missing pollen. 
 
 Amongst us also, during the late summer and autumn, 
 when the flowery food supply begins to run short, the bees 
 utilise every opportunity of stealing sweet things, and it is 
 well known to everyone that confectioneries, sugar factories, 
 and similar places are regularly besieged by them. They 
 trace out every such spot with tireless patience, however 
 concealed it may be, or however difficult to get at, as, for 
 instance, syrup-casks in cellars, which can only be reached 
 by narrow cracks in the cellar shutters. Bee-masters thereby 
 .suffer great loss, for on such occasions many bees perish for 
 the same thing through which so many men lose life or 
 health namely, through intemperance. They drink so 
 much that they fall to the ground, and are no longer able to 
 return home. 
 
 Nor do they neglect such chance opportunities as may be 
 offered them by nature. They are as fond of the honey 
 collected by humble bees as of their own, and have many 
 sly ways of getting hold of it. Huber, during a season of 
 scarcity, put the nest of some humble bees in a box near his
 
 THE BEE NATION. 271 
 
 own bees, which promptly ravished it. Some humble bees 
 which, in spite of the disaster hovering over their nest, had 
 remained therein, continued to fly out and to bring food for 
 their wants back to the old place. The bees followed in 
 their tracks, turned back with them into their nest, and did 
 not leave them until they had obtained the surrender of 
 their harvest. They "licked them, stretched out their pro- 
 boscides to them, surrounded them, and would not let them 
 go until they had won from them the sweet juice which they 
 concealed within them. They did not try to kill the insects 
 to which they owed their meal, while the good-natured and 
 rather stupid humble bees, which became quite accustomed 
 to the payment of these contributions, gave up their honey 
 and flew out again. This new style of housekeeping was 
 carried on for more than three weeks, until at last the 
 humble bees scattered, and the beggar bees consequently 
 came no more. Some wasps, which paid a visit resembling 
 those of the bees, did not succeed. They could not make 
 friends with the original owners of the nest in the same way, 
 and did not possess the fine coaxing or sly manners of their 
 rivals. 
 
 An exactly similar scene may be observed between robber 
 bees and the inhabitants of a weak hive, and strikingly 
 recalls the details given above. 
 
 Robber bees can be raised artificially by feeding bees with 
 honey mixed with brandy. They learn to be sadly fond of 
 this drink, just like men, like them, soon become stupid and 
 intoxicated, and, like them, cease to work. If they then 
 become hungry, they fall, like men, from one vice to another, 
 and take to thieving. Instinct withholds them from this 
 fatal enjoyment just as little as it does from the enjoyment 
 of bad or sour honey, by which last proceeding bee-masters 
 often suffer great loss. According to the newspapers, no 
 less than 550 hives perished in Boone County, in America, 
 during April and May, 1872, in consequence of the bees 
 eating sour honey. 
 
 All this, and many other similar facts, show that the bees 
 in their actions do not, as has usually been thought without 
 proof, obey a distinct irresistible impulse of nature, but that 
 with them, exactly as with men, work and pleasure are 
 distinct and various, according to the difference of circum- 
 stances and of wants. ' How shall we name," says A. Fee
 
 272 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 (loc. cit., p. 108), this care and thought for each individual 
 case and condition ? this remarkable division of labor ? 
 this wonderful polity, which orders everything according to 
 settled rules, and momentarily meets a mass of accidental 
 circumstances which it was impossible to foresee ? The 
 bees feel anxiety, hate, and wrath. They accommodate 
 their actions to circumstances, they employ stratagems 
 against enemies which are stronger than themselves, and 
 suit the defence to the strength of the attack. Can this be 
 instinct ? " 
 
 " To deny reason to bees, 1 ' says Leuret, u is to deny all 
 justice ! "
 
 THE BEE NATION. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CELL-BUILDING. 
 
 THIS same point of view must be taken, as for all else, in 
 studying the famous pyramidal and hexagonal cell- 
 building of the bees already described, although in this 
 people have mistakenly tried to find an irrefutable truth of 
 an intelligence and a mathematical knowledge impossible in 
 them. We have seen that the bees often build cells of other 
 shapes as well, and that they mutually correct and improve 
 each other in the building itself. We know that they utilise, 
 for the support and upholding of their combs, bits of stick 
 artificially introduced into the hive : yes, that they will use 
 artificially-prepared combs, or old ones emptied of their 
 honey by human hands, as though they were their own : or 
 that they will continue combs artificially begun, as though 
 they themselves had commenced them.* Different races of 
 bees, such as German and Italian, show considerable dif- 
 ference in their work, but it is surely impossible that there 
 can be a German and an Italian instinct. 
 
 But with all this, the remarkable shape of the individual 
 cells, so exactly agreeing with geometrical laws, is not itself 
 explained, and on this point we should be obliged either to 
 confess our ignorance or to allow that the believers in 
 instinct are right, if we were compelled to admit that the 
 bees have always, since the first origin of their race, built 
 such cells as we see to-day. But the great and important 
 law of gradual evolution, to which the whole organised world 
 owes its origin, here again solves the problem for us, and 
 teaches us that the present shape of the bee-cells has arisen 
 
 * If a plate of wax, with artificially-made commencements of cells of 
 the size and shape of ordinary bee cells, be hung in a hive, the bees 
 will build on this artificial foundation ; bee-masters utilise this to 
 shorten the long introductory labor in the hive, since such manufac- 
 tured articles have been sold.
 
 274 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 gradually in perfectly mechanical fashion from pressure of 
 space and mutual flattening from the originally imperfectly 
 shaped cells, and that the need of economy in space and in 
 wax was the impelling reason for the prosperity and propa- 
 gation of such hives as gradually advanced to the conception 
 of the perfect cell form. That this is. no theory, but fact, 
 is proved by the transition shapes and gradations between 
 perfect and imperfect cells among the nearest relations of 
 the honey bees, such as humble bees, mason bees, Anthophora, 
 Melipona, wasps, etc., which are met to-day in great numbers 
 and variety. According to Darwin, the humble bees are at 
 the extreme end of the scale on the imperfect side ; these 
 use their old cocoons or pupa-cases for the reception of 
 honey, sometimes adding short wax cylinders, and, in addi- 
 tion, making a few separate irregular rounded cells of wax. 
 These cells, which may best be compared to eggs with the 
 point cut smoothly off, or to the open end of a narrow 
 thimble, generally lie irregularly together, or are at the best 
 laid on a short horizontal platform, raised on pillars, so that 
 a humble bee's nest in comparison with a beehive is, to 
 borrow Reaumur's expression, like an irregularly-built village 
 compared with a well laid-outcity. " Regular order, beauty, 
 and grace of form are just as little to be found in our towns, 
 where this house stands one way and its neighbor the other" 
 (Giebel). 
 
 Between these imperfect nests and cells of the humble bee 
 and the perfect ones of the hive, or honey bee, there is a 
 countless number of gradations amonir the various species of 
 bees, as well as among their nearest relations the wasps, 
 with their numberless species and sub-species. Darwin 
 notes among those gradations as specially remarkable the 
 architecture of the Mexican Melipnna dumextlca, an American 
 species of bee, which makes an almost regular waxen comb 
 in the cylindrical cells wherein the young are tended. It 
 also builds for the storage of honey a number of larger 
 cells of almost spherical shape, and of nearly the same 
 size, which are pressed so closely together that at the 
 places of contact the rounded form is lost and a flat sheet 
 of wax forms the partition-wall instead ; this is the begin- 
 ning of a mutual flattening of the previously spherical 
 cells. If the Melipona, like our hive bee, made its 
 spherical cells of the same size and at given equal die-tance&
 
 THE BEE NATION. 275 
 
 from each other and symmetrically in a double layer, and 
 tried to save as much space and wax as possible, its structure 
 would then be almost as perfect as that of the hive bee. Let 
 it now be remembered that the bees always begin with 
 circular holes in a thick wall of wax, and later erect the 
 single partition-walls,- and in order to make the greatest 
 possible room within for the reception of honey and to use 
 as little as possible of the costly and precious wax, they 
 work out the corners sharply, so that each bee carries on its 
 gnawing to the highest admissible extent of thinness of the 
 partition-wall ; let it further be remembered that the 
 mathematical exactitude of the cells has been much 
 exaggerated, and that some are very regular and others very 
 irregular, and that some five and four-cornered cells re 
 found, and we shall then easily come to the conclusion that 
 early ancestors of our honey bees built in as imperfect 
 fashion as the Melipona and only gradually worked on 
 to a perfect system of architecture.* In any case we 
 must disagree with those who think that there is nothing 
 to show such an improvement in our honey bees, and that 
 these rather build their cells to-day exactly as they built 
 them two or three thousand years ago, and as they will 
 probably build to all eternity. But apart from the fact that 
 it would be exceedingly difficult to prove the justice of this 
 contention it is forgotten that bees are not three thousand, 
 but hundreds of thousands of years old, and that on this 
 road they have long attained a grade of perfection which is 
 thoroughly sufficient for their wants and therefore cannot be 
 improved. What Hackel (" On Division of Labor," 1869) 
 says in this connexion of ants is quite as true of bees : 
 " These rude aboriginal ants, which lived many thousands 
 of years ago, perhaps even during the chalk age, had as 
 little idea of the advanced division of labor of the various 
 modern ant States as had our German ancestors of the Stone 
 Age of the high culture of the nineteenth century. These, 
 
 * According to Graber (loc. cit. ii., p. 78) Heinrich Miiller has shewn 
 it to be in the highest degree probable that our present bees are 
 descended from certain digging wasps, from those ro liber Hymenoplera 
 which themselves live on dower-juices, but feed their young, brought 
 up in holes, with insects. Gradually they camo to substitute vegetable 
 matter for the flesh-food which was often only to be obtained with 
 difficulty.
 
 276 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 like those, have slowly and gradually struggled up the toil- 
 some road of progressive development. Even now there are 
 some species of ants ignorant of the highly developed 
 division of labor in the civilised ant States, and which bear 
 the same relation to these as the rude aborigines of Australia 
 and Africa do to the civilised and cultured nations of to- 
 day." 
 
 In this connexion the observations made by Bates (loc. cit., 
 Vol. ii., p. 44) on the American bees, or Meliponce, are very 
 noteworthy. It seems, he says, that none of the American 
 bees have reached that high stage of architectural ability in 
 the formation of their combs which is seen in the European 
 honey bee. The wax cells of the Melipona are generally 
 long and only show an approach to the hexagonal form 
 where many of them come into contact. This certainly 
 vshows plainly enough how the purely mechanical force of 
 pressure and narrow space must gradually cause the originally 
 spherical cells to change into cornered, and especially six- 
 cornered ones. For the hexagon is exactly that geometrical 
 form in which it is the most natural for little bodies, not laid 
 above each other in rows with mathematical accuracy, to 
 unite without gaps and interspaces. Therefore such bodies, 
 as a matter of fact, when they are soft, vesicular or yielding, 
 flatten themselves into hexagons of their own accord in a 
 given narrowed space. For instance, if enough water is 
 poured into a bottle filled with peas to make the peas swell, 
 and they are not able to get out of each others way, on 
 emptying them out hexagonal and not spherical bodies will 
 be found. We have the same appearance if we blow air into 
 soap-suds. All the rising bubbles are pressed together in 
 more or less six-sided forms, whereas bubbles set free in the 
 air are perfectly round. Also the originally spherical cells 
 of which our own body is composed assume the hexagonal 
 form wherever they are closely pressed together, as in mucous 
 membranes, cancerous tumors, etc. Now let us imagine two 
 flat layers of equal- sized thimble-shaped cells, like those, 
 for instance, built by the Melipona scutellaris (compare the 
 picture of p. 464 in Blanchard's work), so placed one above 
 the other that the openings of either layer point outwards, 
 and that the closed ends touch each other, so that each 
 convex surface of the one side fits into the concavity made 
 by the ends of three contiguous cells of the other, and
 
 THE BEE NATION. 277 
 
 imagine that the whole somewhat yielding cells are subjected 
 to a gentle mechanical pressure from above and from below, 
 and we shall then necessarily obtain the shape within and 
 without offered now by the appearance of a double-sided 
 honeycomb ; that is, the cells will each have bent into hexagons, 
 and at their closed ends into small three-sided pyramids with 
 the much-admired dove-tailing of their three rhomboid sides. 
 The already mentioned gnawing away of the several cells in 
 order to save the wax does the rest. It must not be forgotten 
 also, that our honey bee, like the Melipona species named, 
 sometimes builds one-sided combs, and that a double-sided 
 comb is not thinkable in any way save just in the fashion 
 in which the honey bee builds it. 
 
 Above all things it must not be imagined that this 
 mechanical reason for the building of the cells of the boney 
 bee is now necessarily practised. The reason is long gone 
 by, but the work has remained, and this the more because 
 the important matter of sparing space in the narrow artificial 
 hive in which the honey bee is now compelled to live, almost 
 without exception, appears of double significance. Each 
 single bee now at once builds, without knowledge of the 
 reasons which during the lapse of ages have brought about 
 the particular shape and boundaries of its cell, in a way 
 which is prescribed to it partly by its inborn and inherited 
 tendency, partly by the size and s-hape of its body, partly 
 by the conscious design of saving space and wax, partly 
 finally by the instruction given by older comrades. As a 
 rule people are little inclined to admit the last influence,, 
 owing specially to the extraordinary brevity of a bee's life, 
 which does not generally last for more than a year, although 
 Virgil makes it live during not less than seven summers.* 
 But it is forgotten that with this short-lived and most 
 industrious creature a day of life is the same as a year to 
 men, and that if such education takes place it would pro- 
 gress with extraordinary rapidity. We have also seen 
 
 * The queens live from three to four years. It is therefore quite 
 possible that -working -bees may sometimes reach a greater age, 
 although most, according to the opinion of bee-masters, do not survive- 
 more than half a year, and many, as already said, work themselves 
 to death in the course of weeks or months. The drones as a rule do 
 not live more than a quarter.
 
 278 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 among the ants that their whole education is completed in 
 the course of a few days.* 
 
 There is indeed a difficulty touching the inborn and inhe- 
 rited building tendency of the bees, or possibly of an inherited 
 idea of a certain cell-form (which last opinion will not be 
 dealt with further owing to the great obscurity which still 
 surrounds the facts and laws of psychical and psychical 
 heredity), which might be absolutely fatal to such a sup- 
 position. How can we speak of inheritance, it is asked, 
 among creatures which, like the neuter bees and ants, or 
 like the merely working members of the insect colonies, 
 close the cycle of their whole existence with their personal 
 activity, without being able to bequeath their acquired capa- 
 bilities, habits, or talents to their posterity ? while, on the 
 other hand, such a transmission is impossible on the part of 
 the real parents, the non-working fertile females and males 
 of the colony, which are far behind the workers in intelligence 
 and skill ! 
 
 A glance at the historical origin and the past of the bee 
 nation will give the answer to this apparently difficult ques- 
 tion. For there can be no doubt that, as already partly 
 explained, the present organisation of this State and especially 
 its highly developed division of labor, which saves the real 
 founders of the colony from all work, is only the gradual 
 and slowly-ripened product of historical evolution, and that 
 the organisation has not always been that which it is to-day. 
 We find transitional steps here in large numbers, as in the 
 cell-building, among the nearest relations of the bees. The 
 fertile females and males work among the solitary or 
 unsocial bees, as well as among humble bees and wasps; 
 indeed by far the greatest and most important share of the 
 work falls to the lot of the females. The female wasp her- 
 self builds her nest and her cells in the spring, lays her eggs 
 in them, and nurses and feeds her young until the later- 
 emerging workers can relieve her of her heavy work. But 
 even then the female is ceaselessly busy, while the males, 
 emerging at the end of August, clean the nest and carry out 
 excrements and dead bodies. The female humble bee is not 
 less industrious, but works in spring with such rapidity and 
 
 * Further details on the gradual development of the cell-building 
 instinct of bees will be found in Graber (loc. cit. ii., p. 178, etc.).
 
 THE BEE NATION. 279 
 
 skill that she makes a larval cell, fills it with honey or bee- 
 bread, and lays an egg therein in the course of half-an-hour. 
 The later - emerging fertile females and males help the 
 mother in building the cells and in tending the brood. The 
 other solitary species of bees act in a similar way. The 
 female of the mason bee (Megachile muraria) builds in the 
 spring her thimble-shaped larval cells, just as do swallows, 
 out of earth or sand kneaded with saliva, on the sunny sides 
 of garden and stable walls, and this all by herself, although 
 this kind of building requires much skill, industry, and 
 patience. She lays an egg in each cell, after she has put 
 therein a jelly of pollen and honey as food for the larva 
 after hatching. The cell is then closed, another built in 
 similar fashion, and so on. The partition- walls are also 
 cemented, so that the individual cells may have more 
 cohesion, and the whole is covered with a protecting roof of 
 rather rough mortar. We have seen among the ants that 
 although the queens do not work as a rule, they are yet 
 very well able to do so, and that there is indeed a single 
 t.pecies in which they regularly take part in the work. "We 
 have also seen them take a share of fighting, and that in very 
 powerful and effective fashion. It was also shown that 
 some fertile females after the wedding flight dug holes in 
 the ground, and just like wasps and humble bees founded 
 new States and colonies independently and without foreign 
 aid, whilst the founding of new colonies was generally done 
 by emigration from over-populated States. It seems as 
 though the apparent intellectual sloth or inferiority of the 
 fertile females of the bees and ants in comparison with their 
 working sisters is only apparent, and is grounded on the 
 difference of their work. At least the sensible conduct of 
 the queen-bees in occasional emergencies of life, as already 
 described, is in favor of such a conjecture, as is also the 
 founding of new colonies by individual female ants, or their 
 occasional participation in work or in battle. 
 
 In view of such facts there is not the smallest reason to 
 prevent us from believing that the female bee originally 
 formed her own colony and was at once queen and worker 
 in her own person, just as are to-day her relations above- 
 mentioned. The now so idle drones may also in long past 
 times have rendered services which were later taken from 
 them by the industrious workers as the division of labor 
 
 T2
 
 280 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 progressed. But although the queens and drones do not 
 now work yet the capacities inherited from earlier times 
 still remain to them, especially to the former, and are kept alive 
 and fresh by the impressions constantly made upon them 
 during life, and they are thus in a position to transmit them 
 to their posterity. In any case the now so firmly established 
 condition of the bee State, resting as it does on a steady 
 historical past, agrees with this idea of capacities acquired 
 by the force of heredity, but no longer capable of further 
 development or perfectibility. 
 
 The views here expressed become almost a certainty when 
 we learn from Graber (loc. cit. ii., p. 88, etc.) that the 
 queen, although owing to the division of labor in the bee 
 State she has no longer need of it, still possesses the col- 
 lecting baskets on the hind legs so indispensable to the 
 working-bees as a rudiment or remainder from the earlier 
 time when she was an ordinary worker, while on the other 
 hand, as before-mentioned, the workers possess rudimentary 
 ovaries. " The worker," adds Graber, " is thus a mutilated 
 queen, and the queen an emancipated worker." Therefore 
 again, as we have mentioned before, is it possible for 
 workers occasionally to set themselves up as queens, doubt- 
 less in remembrance of their former more exalted position ! 
 
 That this opinion, if correct, would also apply to the other 
 social insects, and especially to ants supposing that the 
 force of heredity in explaining their capacities and habits 
 cannot be denied scarcely requires special argument. But 
 that these capacities and habits, when once present, should 
 be similarly repeated in each new colony cannot seem 
 strange, owing to the planting of new colonies from the old 
 or by the mothers. The young bees and ants have only in 
 all cases to follow the example of the older ones which 
 they have before them, and the faculty of imitation is, as we 
 see by countless examples, a chief characteristic of common 
 work in all social insects, as among men. 
 
 But to return once again to the constitution and arrange- 
 ments of the bee State, it must be admitted, on unprejudiced 
 observation, that the idea of a well-ordered State, politically 
 and socially, is here indeed almost attained. There is 
 among them no standing army, as among other insects 
 related to them and among men, but the State seeks pro- 
 tection (in cultivated hives become partly unnecessary)
 
 THE BEE NATION. 281 
 
 against outside attacks in the universal arming of its working 
 citizens, just as the burgesses of towns in the Middle Ages 
 were at once craftsmen and soldiers. In the interior it is 
 work only, and that of the most selfless kind, always 
 directed to the common good, which is the bond of union. 
 This work, and this absence of an army always prepared for 
 war, prevent the bees from thinking unnecessarily about 
 foreign wars and regularly organised pillaging expeditions 
 and slave hunts, like the ants. Wars which somewhat re- 
 semble those of the ants only arise when the home is to be 
 defended against foreign invasion and attack, and especially 
 against robbery by members of their own race. A furious 
 battle sometimes also breaks out wheu two swarms with 
 different queens meet, possibly because each swarm fears 
 that the other wants to steal its queen. As a matter of fact 
 the battle as a rule ends when one of the queens of the 
 hostile bees has been killed. It is not yet explained why, 
 as Scheitlin relates, a kind of civil war and a general hand- 
 to-hand fight sometimes arises in the interior of a hive, and 
 ends with the death of many ; possibly robbery may here 
 also be the inducing cause. Private quarrels also appear to 
 occur. These, however, must not be fought out in the hive 
 itself, but outside, and as a rule end in the death of one of 
 the duellists, which has received the stab of the terrible 
 poisoned sting between the segments of the abdomen. 
 
 Whether, as Virgil so poetically relates, quarrels between 
 single queens can cause wars and battles between whole 
 hives and swarms is doubtful and not probable, when we 
 remember that the workers, as a rule, leave the queens to 
 fight out their own quarrels, and only take part as passive 
 spectators. It is more likely that such battles should take 
 place for the valuable possession of a queen. Yet it is no 
 uncommon sight for two swarms in which there is only one 
 queen, instead of fighting, considering it better for the 
 common interest to utilise their forces by uniting together. 
 Perhaps the bees, since Virgil's time, have become more 
 peaceable and more sensible on this head, and have recog- 
 nised, better than do men, that war is the greatest evil and 
 the greatest folly on earth, especially when waged in the 
 interests of the ruler and not in those of the people. 
 
 Our admirable bee democrats must not be too severely 
 blamed for their " crowned head," when we remember how
 
 282 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 thoroughly overlooked the queen is by the workers and how 
 dependent she is upon them, and that her sphere of authority 
 does not nearly approach that of the president of a human 
 Republic. She appears less as ruler than as the first and 
 most important servant of the commonwealth, and homage 
 is paid her more from love and respect and because the 
 existence of the colony depends upon her, than from fear of 
 her sovereign power. Nor has she, like the constitutional 
 human monarch, the remarkable prerogative of personal 
 immunity and irresponsibility, but must give throne and life 
 as security for the fulfilment of her royal duties. 
 
 Statesmen, workmen, and reformers, take ye an example 
 therefrom ! 
 
 But not only in political but also in personal training 
 may the bees serve us as models and examples. For where 
 shall we find united with so much virtue, industry, and self- 
 sacrifice, so much modesty and simplicity of form and of 
 behavior ? What a distance between the quiet bee in its 
 simple dress, and the glittering thousand-hued butterfly, a 
 coquettish idler, fluttering from flower to flower, from 
 pleasure to pleasure, and delighting the eye of the spectator 
 with its wealth of color ! or the proud buzzing and humming 
 beetle, letting the rays of the sunlight glance back from the 
 golden and glittering wing-cases ! And although they both 
 draw the eyes of the world on them and are admired and 
 sought by all, yet how far they stand below our bees in 
 intelligence and accomplishments, for which they only can 
 feel admiration who know them, and who are able to judge 
 their merit and to prize them. What a wonderful picture 
 of human life and common-place human estimation ! The 
 thoughtful Greeks indeed, with a warm fondness for the 
 famous honey of Hymettus, have shown excellent views of 
 true virtue and true merit by calling their God the Father, 
 Zeus, the God of Bees and the Father of Bees, and by 
 making sacred bees guard the grotto in which he was born. 
 In the form of bees the Muses showed to the lonians the 
 path from Attica over the sea to Asia, and priestesses were 
 named bees on account of their peculiar sanctity. Born of the 
 sun, the bee ever remembers its home, while the lazy drone is 
 born from the carcase of the horse. Bee-souls are therefore 
 those souls which keep themselves pure and think of results. 
 Bees avoid all that is base. They placed sweet honey on the
 
 THE BEE NATION. 283 
 
 lips of the new born Zeus, and rejoiced over him, and the 
 gods on high Olympus feast on honey in nectar and ambrosia 
 (Scheitlin, loc. eit., p. 115). Perhaps also it was the bees 
 which suggested to the Greeks and their great poet Hesiod 
 the deep proverb, that the gods had placed toil before talent ! 
 They certainly might have done so. And when Pliny in his 
 " Natural History " (Book xi.) told of two Greek sages 
 (Aristomachus of Soles and Philiscus of Thasus) who had 
 devoted all their lives to the study of bees, this further proves 
 how rightly the Greeks knew how to value the interest and 
 merit of this wonderful insect. This interest has not only 
 endured down to the present time, but has increased with 
 the more intimate knowledge of the domestic life of this 
 remarkable creature. " From bees," says Dr. Dzierzon, of 
 Carlsmarkt (loc. cz'tf.), to whom we owe so much of our 
 nearer knowledge of this life, " since their activity, their whole 
 domestic life has latterly been completely revealed to men, 
 man can learn even more than from the ants, set out in the 
 Scriptures as an example shaming the sluggard. The industry 
 of the bee is unwearying and it often falls a sacrifice thereby 
 to cold air. In its cleanliness, mutual attachment and com- 
 patibility, its disinterestedness, dividing the last drop of honey 
 with its sisters, in its tender love for the common mother 
 and ruler, in its courage in defending her and its hive, 
 rushing against an enemy threatening its destruction with a 
 real contempt of death, the bee is to man a teacher of the 
 fairest domestic and civil duties. If each citizen of a state 
 acted from conviction and a feeling of duty as the bee acts 
 from direct inspiration or instinct, such a state might well 
 call itself happy." 
 
 Our forefathers also, the ancient farmers, valued bees 
 highly, on account of the mead which they prepared from 
 their honey, and unusually long and broad honeycombs were 
 brought out of Germany to Rome. They did not keep the 
 bees in wood or straw hives, but in hollow trees, such as the 
 wild wood bee, of which we shall speak presently, still uses 
 for its nests.
 
 284 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 OTHER SPECIES OF BEES. 
 
 THE last-named bee, like all the other species of bees or 
 Apides, of which there are several hundreds, are far 
 behind the European hive or honey bee in intelligence, 
 although much that is wonderful and surprising is related of 
 many among them, and although both their organisation 
 and their habits closely resemble those of the honey bees. 
 They also, without exception, show great skill in building. 
 The Osmia, among which the already-mentioned mason bee 
 is generally reckoned, makes buildings before whjch it is 
 impossible, as Blanchard says (Ice. cit.), not to fall into 
 ecstasy. It shows incredible prudence arid reflection in the 
 choice of materials for its cells. As it does not possess the 
 shovel-like hollows in its hind-legs in which the honey bee 
 collects pollen, it manages by rubbing its hairy body over the 
 stamens, and on arriving at home brushes off the pollen, 
 quantities of which remain between the hairs, from its body 
 with its hind-legs. It has already been said that the mason 
 bee closes its larval cells with a firm roof of mortar, 
 and as this mortar becomes as hard as a stone in con- 
 tact with the air it would seem inconceivable how the 
 young bees should emerge if the wise builder did not leave a 
 little hole closed only with soft earth or bits of stone, which 
 look like the roof, in the near side of that cell the inmate 
 of which will first emerge. It also very Avell understands 
 how to accommodate its building to circumstances, and when 
 it finds an old and deserted nest it will spare itself the 
 trouble of making a new one, and adapt the old nest to 
 its purposes after previous cleansing. Jn Algiers mason 
 bees have also been observed which also shirk the labor, 
 and make their cells in empty snail-shells. Others appear not 
 to follow their inborn tendency to build, or building instinct, 
 at all, but to usurp a ready-made nest with its cells at a
 
 THE BEE NATION. 285 
 
 moment when the maker is away, and then to hold it by 
 force against the rightful owner. " Thus," adds Blanchard 
 to the relation of this fact which happens with nearly all 
 nest-building insects (and animals) and has already been 
 mentioned in the Introduction to this work " single indi- 
 viduals of the same species seem to possess quite different 
 tendencies. One is industrious and works honestly ; others 
 are lazy and try to possess themselves of their neighbor's 
 property by craft or force. Are there yet people who are 
 ignorant enough to regard animals as machines, and to 
 grasp nothing of the greatness of creation ? " 
 
 " Does the mason bee act like a machine," says E. Menault 
 (loc. cit. p. 36), " when it directs its work according to cir- 
 cumstances, possesses itself of old nests, cleanses and 
 improves them, and thereby shows that it can fully appre- 
 ciate the immediate position ? Can one believe that no kind 
 of reflexion is here necessary ? " 
 
 Bates noticed very similar facts (loc. cit., Bk. ii., p. 43, 
 etc.) among some species of South American Melipona, bees 
 which have no sting, and yield a rather finer honey than 
 their European relations. They utilise the baskets on their 
 hind-legs not only for pollen, but also for collecting earth 
 and carrying it home for building. They hang their combs 
 in hollow trees or in holes in a bank, and require the 
 earth to build up the opening of the hole, and to make 
 only a narrow passage. They are thus masons and honey- 
 gatherers at the same time. One small species is so prudent 
 as to put a tube of kneaded earth, with the outer opening 
 shaped like a trumpet, before its entrance, and here it keeps 
 a continual guard, protecting the passage. Another kind 
 collects leaves and chips, which it fastens together with resin 
 from trees, to close its nest. 
 
 Drory (" Eichstadter Bee Journal," 1874, No. 24) who 
 kept some Meliponce sent to him from Brazil for a year near 
 his hive bees at Bordeaux, saw how these used accidentally 
 spread varnish for building, and how individuals building 
 tried to steal materials from each other. Cells for larvae 
 and for provisions are very different with them. Some 
 species (as the already mentioned Melipona scutellaris) show 
 great courage, and defend their nest very vigorously not 
 only against other insects but also against men who try to 
 destroy them. These wild bees are also perfectly competent
 
 286 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 to distinguish friend from foe among men, and to act 
 accordingly. This was very strikingly shown in a case 
 observed by Stedmann (" Travels in Surinam," Vol. ii., 
 p. 286). Mr. Stedmann was visited in his hut by a 
 neighbor, who had hardly entered when he rushed out again 
 as if mad, yelling with pain, and ran to the nearest river to 
 plunge his head into the water. It was soon seen that, 
 being a very tall man, he had on entering the hut struck his 
 head against a nest of wild bees which had settled in the 
 roof over the door. Stedmann, distressed at such an 
 occurrence, left the hut at once and bade the slaves destroy 
 the nest. They were just going to obey when an old negro 
 came up and declared that the bees would never sting Mr. 
 Stedmann ; he would undergo any punishment if they did. 
 " Massa," said he, " you would have been stung long ago if 
 you had been hostile to the bees. But as you are their host and 
 have allowed them to build under your roof, they know you 
 and your people, and will never do any harm either to them 
 or to you." Mr. Stedmann found that the old man was 
 right, for even when he shook the nest the bees stung 
 neither him nor his negroes. The same old man related that 
 he had once lived on a property on which there was a large 
 tree. In this tree had lived, as long as he could remember, 
 a society of birds and one of bees, both dwelling together in 
 great amity. For if strange birds molested the bees they 
 were driven away by those which were at home, while if 
 strange bees came to the birds' nests they were attacked and 
 killed by the friendly bees. The family of the owner of 
 the property took great pleasure in this remarkable friend- 
 ship and would not suffer it to be in any way disturbed. 
 
 Bates found, in the neighborhood of Santarem and Villa 
 Nuova, no less than 140 different species of bees, which are 
 mostly quite different from the European. Many build in 
 hollow branches and boughs of trees, while others neither 
 build nor gather stores, but lay their eggs in the nests of 
 their companions. They are, therefore, among bees what 
 the cuckoo is among birds. The habits of wild bees espe- 
 cially show the most manifold varieties according to varieties 
 of circumstances, locality, etc. The wood bees of South 
 America, instead of visiting flowers, collect the excretions 
 of trees and the excrements of birds on leaves. In Abyssinia 
 they sometimes build in the deserted dwellings of white ants,
 
 THE BEE NATION. 287 
 
 sometimes on the roofs of houses, sometimes in trees or rock 
 crevices, etc., and always know how to choose the place of 
 their settlement with regard to the best food. A bird lives 
 at the Cape, the so-called honey-guide (Cucculus indicator), 
 which leads the honey-seeking Hottentots to the bee-nests 
 known to it by flying before them, always to short dis- 
 tances, to show them -the way. As a reward, therefore, it 
 always receives part of the spoil. Can this also be instinct ? 
 
 Very interesting also is the poppy or tapestry bee (Apis, 
 or Osmia, or Anthocopa papaveris), which digs holes for her 
 larvae three inches deep in the ground, and then so carefully 
 lines or tapestries them with cut-out pieces of the soft and 
 delicate petals of the wild poppy that not a wrinkle is left. 
 In order to make the nest quite warm and firm, several 
 layers of petals are laid one over the other. But most 
 remarkable is the way in which, after egg and bee-bread 
 have been placed in the cell, she closes it by fastening up the 
 leaves just as we should tie a sack. This done, loose earth 
 is piled over all, so that nothing betrays the presence of the 
 nest. 
 
 There are a number of species of bees besides the tapestry 
 bee which cut leaves with their long sharp mandibles, armed 
 with four teeth, and are therefore called leaf-cutter bees by 
 Reaumur. The most widely spread of these is the rose bee 
 (Megachile centancularis), which cuts off pieces of rose and 
 ash-leaves, and so arranges the cut-out pieces in her sub- 
 terranean passages that a row of half overlapping covered 
 thimble-shaped cups is formed, which serve as cells for 
 the larvse and their food. The arrangement and closure 
 of each cell are as firm as they are neat. The whole is 
 covered with earth, so as to be invisible from outside. 
 Bingley very well describes (loc. cit., vol. iv., p. 155) the 
 care and thought, as well as mechanical skill, with which 
 the leaves are cut out. 
 
 Reaumur relates a strikingly quaint anecdote of this 
 insect: 
 
 "In the early days of July, 1736, the lord of a village 
 near Andelis came to the Abbe Nollet, in company with his 
 apparently much terrified gardener. The latter had come 
 to Paris to tell his master that his property had been 
 bewitched. He had had the courage to bring with him 
 some proofs which had convinced himself, the priest of the
 
 288 THE BEE NATION. 
 
 . village, and all the neighbors of the witchcraft at work. 
 The lord shewed these first to his doctor, who was able to 
 give no opinion upon them, and then to M. Nollet, from 
 whom M. Reaumur had the story. They were the cylin- 
 drical nests of the rose bee made out of rose leaves, which 
 the gardener thought could only have been made by a man 
 or a wizard. For, as no ordinary man could make them, and 
 it was difficult to see with what object he should make them 
 and bury them in the ground, they could only be the work 
 of a wizard. M. Nollet assured the good man that they 
 were the work of insects, and, as a proof, pulled a large 
 maggot out of the leaves. When the gardener saw this, his 
 erstwhile gloomy face brightened, and he looked like a man 
 who had safely escaped a great danger." 
 
 The heavy carpenter bee (Xylocopa), spread in countless 
 species all over the globe, understands very thoroughly how 
 to hollow out her nests in old wood or beams. One of the 
 commonest sort is our violet carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea\ 
 whose toilsome buildings may easily be found by anyone. 
 Solely by means of its strong sharp mandibles it hollows out 
 with tireless patience admirably smooth cylinders in the 
 wood, which it then divides into single cell-like chambers 
 with sawdust fastened together with a kind of glue. From 
 the lowest cell, in which is the larva which will be the first 
 to emerge, the mother makes a passage to the outside, so 
 that the insects lying above have to bore through the thin 
 partition-walls of their respective cells in order to escape. 
 
 The carpenter bee requires no special lining for its cells, 
 owing to the softness and dryness of the wood ; but the wool 
 bee (Anihidium) carefully lines or tapestries its cylinders, 
 dug in loamy or sandy earth or in clay walls, with vegetable 
 wool scraped off leaves and flowers. The cleverness with 
 which it scrapes this wool off the plants is really astonishing. 
 
 The good-natured and rather limited humble bee, with 
 its simple nest, displays unusual intelligence in biting the 
 nectaries of flowers, as mentioned above, in order to be 
 better able to reach their sweet contents. The way in which 
 the moss humble bees surround their nest with a layer of 
 wax, and then with a thick covering of moss, and in which 
 they pass the moss to their abode, standing in rows and 
 throwing a little bit of moss from one to another, betrays 
 similar intelligence. The long passage to the nest, often
 
 THE BEE NATION. 289' 
 
 winding, has, as a rule, a guard stationed in it, which has to 
 drive away ants and other insects. Godart also states 
 (Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 219) that each humble bee's nest has 
 a trumpeter, who mounts to the roof early in the morning, 
 flutters his wings, and wakes the inhabitants to work by 
 trumpeting ! The industry and intelligence of the humble 
 bees increase, however, with the size of their community. 
 Small societies confine themselves to what is necessary, pre- 
 pare no wax covering, do not lengthen their honey-cells, 
 etc., while in larger ones a kind of emulation in the best 
 care of the house and tendance of the young impels them to 
 increased efforts. 
 
 Each species of humble bee, like most species of bees, 
 and like so many races of insects, has parasites or spongers 
 resembling it in form and appearance, which utilise this 
 likeness to put their eggs in the prepared nests, and then fly 
 away without troubling themselves further about them. They 
 have neither pleasure in nor ability for work, for their work 
 instruments are rudimentary, apparently by long disuse ; 
 they lose nothing also thereby, for their eggs are brought to 
 maturity with those of their host.
 
 THE WASPS.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 GENERAL DETAILS. 
 
 TNFERIOR in intelligence, but stronger or hastier in 
 JL character than the bees, is the whole nearly allied large 
 and warlike family of the wasps, which although far more 
 simply organised have as numerous colonies as do bees, 
 termites, and ants. The wasp State is arranged just like 
 that of the humble bee. Since wasps and humble bees do 
 not live over the winter, the alone surviving fertile female 
 builds a nest in the spring underground or in some other 
 favorable spot, lays eggs in it and nurses the larvae hatched 
 therefrom until the young emerge and are able to assist the 
 mother in the further building and the tendance of the brood. 
 The insects which emerge during this period are incapable 
 of laying eggs although they are of the female sex ; their 
 whole activity is devoted to the business of nest-building 
 and brood-tending, by which work their sexual organs are 
 arrested. As with bees and ants, they are the neuters or 
 workers. Toward the end of summer the female lays both 
 eggs from which males are hatched and others from which 
 fertile females are developed. These males and females unite 
 in the autumn. As soon as the cold weather begins all save 
 the fertile females die ; the latter live through the winter 
 and found new colonies in the following spring. 
 
 In these proceedings two things were for a long time 
 regarded ' as inexplicable, and were considered as a mystery 
 evidencing a very special and wise disposition of providence. 
 The first puzzle, or the appearance of sexless workers among 
 male and female animals was explained, as soon as it was 
 understood that the so-called neuters as already shown 
 with bees and ants were not really sexless, but were only 
 undeveloped females, whose sexual organs did not develop 
 owing to the expenditure of strength on nest-building and 
 on the tendance of the young, while on the other hand, as 
 
 u
 
 294 THE WASPS. 
 
 we have seen with the bees, rest and plentiful food bring 
 about their development. The second and more difficult 
 problem, or the later appearance of males and fertile females, 
 was solved when the discovery was made among bees that 
 the queen was able to control the laying of male and female 
 eggs, and how this was done. The fertile females of the 
 wasps, therefore, lay female and fertilised eggs only so long 
 as the stock of semen in the spermatophore lasts. When 
 this store is exhausted in late summer or autumn, male 
 insects must necessarily be formed. But of the female or 
 fertilised eggs only the last laid will result in sexually- 
 mature females, because the nest building is only then 
 finished, and food enough can then be supplied to the 
 workers to enable the sexual organs of the larvae to attain 
 full development. " That which at first appeared as a 
 designed plan," says W. Dundt (" Lectures on Mind in Men 
 and.Animals," ii., p. 196), " which mysteriously found its 
 fulfilment by the instinct of animals, has been shown to be 
 so completely the result of necessity in these mpst simple 
 insect societies, that after the physical organisation of the 
 animal has once been established in this distinct fashion no 
 other explanation will be longer thought of." 
 
 The wasps proper, like the bees, live socially and in 
 regular communities, in which labor is divided among the 
 males, females, and workers or neuters, although not as com- 
 pletely as among bees. They would fill us with wonder and 
 astonishment as to the reasoned and artistic building of their 
 dwellings, the care of their young, the order prevailing in 
 their societies, if we only had them, and not their yet more 
 intellectual relations the bees, before our eyes. They are 
 brave, patient, versatile and crafty, and as they are subject 
 to common and daily observation as they fly about cease- 
 lessly in autumn, a number of anecdotes are related about 
 them which illustrate their sense and their cunning. As the 
 wasps have not like the bees comfortable homes, or tolerably 
 suitable holes in trees, sheds, etc., they usually build their 
 nests and cells hanging, fastening them to the branch of a 
 tree, eaves of a roof, etc., by one or more threads of twisted 
 wood-fibres, and covering all with a hanging roof made of 
 paper-like material. All the individual cells have their 
 openings downwards, so that the larva must hang head 
 downwards and must hold on to the cell-walls with their
 
 THE WASPS. 295 
 
 papillae. This style of building protects the nest as much as 
 possible against the vicissitudes of the weather, and especially 
 against rain, which cannot penetrate into the cells. Each 
 species of wasp has its own special plan of building, and 
 works the rough material in its own way, so that there are 
 countless kinds of wasps' nests, all of which, however, 
 deserve admiration for their neatness and convenience of 
 structure, although all these buildings are only intended for 
 a summer's use. Most species of wasps scrape off with their 
 mandibles the somewhat weather-worn outer surface of 
 boards, fences, boughs, etc., and fasten together with saliva 
 the wood-fibres thus obtained into a smooth mass, much 
 resembling grey blotting-paper. They first knead together 
 pellets out of this mass, and work it up further on arriving 
 at home. If they can steal any real paper they use it to 
 save themselves work. Dry leaves also occasionally serve 
 their purpose. The cells themselves in which they bring up 
 their young are sometimes almost cylindrical empty globes, 
 sometimes hexagonal cells like those of bees, and are 
 arranged in horizontal layers or combs, one under the other, 
 joined together by a sort of supporting framework, or many 
 pillars, leaving room enough between for free communication 
 and unhindered access to the young. The cells for males 
 and fertile females are larger and of rather different form 
 from that of the workers' cells. The wasps do not require 
 special store-chambers, for they bring in no honey, and kill 
 and throw out any larvae that remain when the cold of 
 winter approaches and they can find no more food for them 
 outside. Specially artistic is the nest of the hornet ( Vespa 
 crabo), often fifty centimetres high and from thirty to forty 
 centimetres in diameter, surrounded by a thick covering of 
 waved scales or layers. This strong and dreaded robber, the 
 terror of all winged flower-suckers, goes about among them 
 like the devil among poor souls, and even carries off large 
 butterflies to its hungry waiting brood. It scrapes up young 
 birch and ash-bark, to build therewith its grey paper-like cells 
 and nests, and harms, therefore, a large number of young 
 trees. But it also uses rotten wood for the same purpose, 
 and if it finds hollow trees in which it can take up its abode, 
 it makes itself at home and builds with little care. 
 
 How often have hornets' nests aroused the wonder of 
 those which have seen or found them for the first time, and 
 
 u2
 
 296 THE WASPS. 
 
 made them fancy that they had discovered a valuable 
 prize ! 
 
 The nests of the common wasps (Vespa vulgaris) are 
 smaller, and are sometimes found above as well as under- 
 ground, and from outside with their paper-like coverings 
 look very much like a lump of coal. None the less they 
 often contain the enormous number of ten thousand cells, 
 after they have originally consisted of only from eight to 
 ten, and have been constantly enlarged according to the 
 needs of the increasing population. The entrance is found, 
 as a rule, at the lower end of the pear-shaped hanging nest, 
 and is watched day and night by the wasps, as among bees 
 and ants, by a guard or sentinel, which warns the population 
 within of any approaching danger. The males work in the 
 interior of the nest just like the ordinary workers, but they 
 seem to confine their labor chiefly to the cleansing of the 
 nest, the carrying out of dead bodies, etc. They are fed, 
 like the real females and the workers busied in the nest, by 
 the out-flying wasps, which bring home animal food and 
 fruits, and are robbers and murderers as bold as they are 
 crafty. Like falcons, they pounce upon other insects, tear 
 or bite off head, wings or legs, and carry home the quiver- 
 ing stump. Flies and bees suffer specially from them. In 
 butchers' shops, after they have satisfied themselves, they 
 will tear and carry off pieces of meat half as large as them- 
 selves. With soft fruits they suck themselves as full as 
 possible, and divide the superfluity at home from mouth to 
 mouth among comrades and larvae. As soon as a worker 
 laden in this way reaches the nest, it is at once surrounded 
 on all sides and relieved of its booty. The larvaa are fed, 
 like young birds, from mouth to mouth, and it is curious to 
 see with what eagerness and speed the female hurries from 
 cell to cell and gives each larva its share. As soon as a 
 larva changes and leaves the cell as an imago, the cell is, 
 as with the bees, most carefully cleaned and prepared for 
 the reception of another egg. 
 
 Dr. Darwin (" Zoonomia," sec. xvi.) tells of a wasp which 
 he observed trying to fly through the air with a large fly it 
 had caught, after it had torn off its head and abdomen. 
 The wind was against it, and the wings remaining on the 
 stump formed so great an hindrance that the wasp, in order 
 to avoid it, flew down to the ground, tore them off, and then
 
 THE WASPS. 297 
 
 flew off unshackled with its burden. This often-told and 
 much wondered at story really contains nothing exceptional, 
 nothing that would be beyond the intellectual powers of a 
 wasp. And indeed similar observations have been repeatedly 
 made. Herr H. Lowenfels, of Coburg, writes to the author 
 under date of November 23, 1875 : " Walking on a sunny 
 but windy autumn day I saw something hovering in the air 
 and carried quickly by the wind in a slanting direction to 
 the ground, which struck me as curious. It was not a leaf 
 nor anything like one. Wont to pass carelessly by no natural 
 phenomenon, however trivial, I followed the object to 
 unriddle the puzzle and went to the spot whereon it had 
 fallen. I here found a robber-wasp busied in lifting from 
 the ground a large fly which it had apparently killed. It 
 succeeded indeed in its attempt, but had scarcely raised its 
 prey a few inches above the ground when the wind caught 
 the wings of the dead fly and they began to act like a sail. 
 The wasp was clearly unable to resist this action, and was 
 blown a little distance in the direction of the wind, where- 
 upon it let itself fall to the ground with its prize. It now 
 made no more attempts to fly, but with eager industry pulled 
 off with its teeth the fly's wings which hindered it in its 
 object. When this was quite done it seized the fly, which 
 was heavier than itself, and flew off with it untroubled 
 on its journey through the air at a height of about five feet. I 
 abstain from any reflexions on this accurately observed fact." 
 Herr Albert Schluter, of Sisterdale (Kendall county), in 
 Texas, saw a somewhat similar incident, and communicated 
 it to the author as follows, under the date June 30, 1876: 
 " In the last year of the civil war, in the spring of 1865, I 
 sat angling, as almost daily, in the Podernales (?), five miles 
 from Fredericksburg, in the shade of a small wood on the 
 bank. In the sand near me a colony of ant-lions had 
 settled, and I now and then pushed a passing insect into 
 their funnels. Suddenly with piercing alarum a cicada of 
 exceptional size fell from above between the funnels, and 
 shook down and spoilt a number of them by its convulsive 
 movements, while it continued its cries. Immediately after 
 it came a pursuing hornet of the size and color of the Ger- 
 man (we have here one twice as large, which easily carries 
 off a full-grown tobacco-caterpillar), threw itself upon it 
 and stung it, it seemed, to death, for the noise and more-
 
 298 THE WASPS. 
 
 ment at once ceased. The murderer walked over its prey, 
 which was considerably larger than itself, grasped its body 
 with its feet, spread out its wings and tried to fly away with 
 it. Its strength was not sufficient, and after many efforts it 
 gave up the attempt. Half a minute went by ; sitting 
 astride on the corpse and motionless only the wings occa- 
 sionally jerking it seems to reflect, and indeed not in vain. 
 A mulberry- tree stood close by, really only a trunk for the 
 top had been broken off, clearly by the last flood of about 
 ten or twelve feet high. The hornet saw this trunk, dragged 
 its prey toilsomely to the foot of it, and then up to the top. 
 Arrived thereat, it rested for a moment, grasped its victim 
 firmly and flew off with it to the prairies. That which it 
 was unable to raise off the ground it could now carry easily 
 once high in the air." 
 
 Th. Meenan (" Proc. of the Acad. of Nat.," Philadelphia, 
 Jan. 22, 1878) observed a very similar case with Vespa 
 maculata. He saw one of these wasps try in vain to raise 
 from the ground a grasshopper it had killed. When all its 
 efforts proved to be in vain, it pulled its prey to a maple- 
 tree, about thirty feet off, mounted it with its prize and 
 flew away from it. " This," adds the writer, " was more 
 than instinct. It was reflexion and judgment, and the 
 judgment was proved to be correct." 
 
 Birds often find the same difficulty, it being very difficult 
 often for them to rise from the ground, but very easy to fly 
 from a height. 
 
 Dr. Ludwig Nagel, of Schmolle, writes : " On a business 
 journey the writer saw an ichneumon-fly (Ichneumon luteus) 
 laden with a large field-spider (Aranea or Tecjenaria agrestis) 
 coming obliquely across the footpath. The spider had 
 already been killed by the bite and the sting of the fly. The 
 latter, which had grasped the spider by the hinder part of 
 the body with its jaws, struggled bravely on, pushing its 
 victim before it. But the weight was too heavy and would 
 go no further. So the fly turned round and went back- 
 wards, pulling the spider after it. Its nest was in a rather 
 hilly, rising grass border. This reached, its march was 
 rendered more difficult by the grass and the sloping ground, 
 and it was often obliged to stop, and sometimes it slipped a 
 little way back again. None the less it finished its journey 
 and pulled its victim into its nest."
 
 THE WASPS. 299 
 
 Herr Merkel, of Gumbinnen, writes as follows to the 
 author under date of February 8, 1876 : " Six years ago I 
 was tenant of the Railway Tavern, (?) the (?) Ostbahn,* 
 and as I had there much time and leisure, I busied myself 
 with seeking fossils, the railway excavations offering a fine 
 field. As I was one day searching a hollow in the strata with 
 this object, I saw a little grey wasp creeping over it, which 
 was pulling along a caterpillar about an inch in length, 
 holding it firmly with its jaws while it had three legs on 
 either side the caterpillar. The latter appeared to be dead, 
 for it did not move when its bearer let it go and went to a 
 distance of about a man's pace. It was clearly looking for 
 something, for it ran quickly up and down, until at last it 
 stood still before a little hole in the ground, about the size 
 of a lead pencil. It slipped into this hole, came out again, 
 ran to the caterpillar, grasped it as before, pulled it to the 
 hole, put one end over it, then went to the other end and 
 lifted it up so high that the caterpillar fell in. But a piece 
 of it stuck out, and this did not seem to suit the wasp, for it 
 began to pull it out again, using its jaws and both fore-feet 
 with wonderful skill. It laid the caterpillar down near the 
 hole, went in again and brought out several little stones of 
 the size of small peas. It then again let the caterpillar fall 
 into the hole in the way already described. As this time 
 there was none of it to be seen, the wasp went half in itself, 
 emitted a slight hum (an expression of satisfaction. L, B.), 
 came out again and began to scratch round the hole with its 
 hind-legs until it was quite filled up. It then hovered round, 
 examined its work very closely, and as it was to its satis- 
 faction gave another hum and flew away." 
 
 Herr K. B. Zelinka, Railway Inspector of the South 
 Austrian Railway, writes from Graz on December 23, 1875 : 
 " In the year 1868, in the middle of the summer, my duties 
 called me to the station of St. Lorenz (station of the railway 
 from Marburg to Frangenfeste in the Tyrol), in the Drau- 
 thal. The hot July sun made it seem wise to spend the 
 middle of the day in the shade thrown by good luck by a 
 tree in front of the little inn, which stood in a very malarious 
 position on the bank of the Radlbach at its junction with 
 
 * [As the queries are in the original, I leave the German name ; it 
 is apparently some district " Eastern Railway." TR.]
 
 300 THE WASPS. 
 
 the Drau. Just as I was finishing my modest dinner (I was 
 sitting in the open air before the house, beneath the leafy 
 roof of the tree), I noticed the swift flight backwards and 
 forwards of a common wasp. At the same time I observed 
 on a spider-web, glittering in the sun, a fine specimen of the 
 cross-spider, letting itself slowly down. When it had 
 descended to about three metres from the ground, the wasp 
 pounced on it with lightning-speed, and stung it in its thick 
 abdomen. The spider raised itself a little way, but the wasp 
 flew at it again, and inflicted a second sting. The spider 
 now fell to the ground, and the wasp at once settled on it, 
 and furiously tore the skin off its body. It then .flew up 
 and circled round the spider, struggling in the agonies of 
 death. Whenever these struggles became more vigorous it 
 fell again upon its victim, and only flew away from the 
 place when the spider showed no further signs of life. I 
 fancied that before the fight I saw, the wasp fell into the 
 web of the spider and was attacked by it, and that when it 
 escaped it took the vengeance I have related." % 
 
 Whether the last idea of the writer is correct, may be 
 left as there given, but the desire of vengeance is certainly 
 a part of the passionate, quarrelsome, and choleric tempera- 
 ment of the wasp. According to the credible account of 
 Ratzeburg, a boy once pushed a mushroom stipe into the 
 entrance of a wasps' nest, on the Herrnkrug, near Magde- 
 burg, so that the inhabitants could not get out. Two days 
 later he went, accompanied by a relative, to the stopped-up 
 wasps' nest, to see what had happened, and some dozens of 
 wasps fell upon him and stung him so badly that he was 
 made seriously ill. His companion was left untouched. 
 
 The common expression " to stir up a wasps' nest " shows 
 how carefully people must guard themselves against this sharp 
 and irritable insect. Even among themselves wasps depart 
 very far from the peaceable character of the bees, and some- 
 times fight with each other in the bitterest way, and the males, 
 although larger and stronger, take to rapid flight before the 
 stings of their working sisters. They distinguish friend from 
 foe among men just as well as do bees. The missionary 
 Grueinzius, in Port Natal (in Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 252), 
 had allowed a native species of wasp to build its nest within 
 the door-posts of his house, and in spite of frequent inter- 
 ferences with the nest, was only once stung by a young wasp,.
 
 THE WASPS. 301 
 
 whereas no Caffre ventured to approach the door, much 
 less to pass through it, because he would undoubtedly have 
 been subjected to a general attack from the quarrelsome 
 insects.
 
 302 THE AVASPS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 VARIOUS SPECIES OF WASPS. 
 
 A MONG the many very distinct species of wasps, the 
 J\_ Polistes gallica, or the French wasp, deserves special 
 mention. It is not peculiar to France, but is found over 
 the greater part of Europe, in Asia Minor up to Persia, and 
 in North Africa as far as Egypt. Von Siebold, who investi- 
 gated very carefully this species of wasp, has come to the 
 (after all, not startling) conclusion that many of their actions 
 are not the result of instinct, but of conscious reflexion 
 (" Parthenogenesis of the Arthropoda," Leipsic, 1871). This 
 is seen in their defence of their nest against ants, which are 
 seized with a spring by the jaws and carried away as far as 
 possible from the nest, or against strange wasps of their own 
 species which steal their larva? to feed their own young, 
 against which they are sometimes obliged to call in the aid 
 of the workers of their nest. Stranger wasps are recognised 
 as such by touching them with the antennae. The small and 
 neat nests of the Polistes, generally hung on plants, are easy 
 to watch, for they have no covering like those of^other wasps ; 
 they are, therefore, turned with their covered or closed sides 
 towards the west, so that wind and rain, which come generally 
 from that quarter, may not penetrate. How very well this 
 little creature knows how to otherwise adapt the building of 
 its nests to circumstances, and to choose suitable places for 
 its object, is shown by the observations of Rouget (Mem. 
 de V Academic de Dijon), who found nests of Polistes near 
 Dijon in the interstices of tiles on wall-copings, which give 
 to these positions great shelter and warmth, and in old 
 glasses and cups in dustheaps. 
 
 The housekeeping of the Polistes, which have only males 
 and two sorts of females (a larger and a less developed 
 smaller), mirrors, according to Graber (loc. cit., ii., p. 91), 
 the original^condition of the bees. The smaller females
 
 THE WASPS. 30 
 
 have already lost the best part of the prerogative of their 
 sex, the reproduction of their kind. The same naturalist 
 had an opportunity of witnessing an interesting incident, 
 proving the great intelligence of the Polistes. He took 
 away from a nest-building insect, during a short absence, 
 the work it had commenced, and quickly fastened on another 
 piece of a nest, three times as large. The architect, on its 
 return, flew uneasily round it, sat down near it, considering 
 the matter, doing nothing till the next day, and on the 
 following day decided to take possession of the strange nest, 
 and build on from it ! It had, therefore, by reflexion, 
 attained to a complete comprehension of the state of affairs, 
 and, instead of giving itself the trouble of building a new 
 nest, it sensibly took possession of the one offered to it. 
 
 The most artistic and also the largest nest is built by the 
 Brazilian Polybia liliacea. De Saussure says that we may 
 " regard its nest as one of the greatest wonders of insect 
 architecture." Blanchard saw one of its nests, which was 110 
 centimetres long and 117 centimetres in circumference ; it 
 was still uncompleted above, but nevertheless contained 
 many thousands of cells. A small American species of 
 wasp (Chartergus nidulans), Reaumur's paper wasp, on the 
 other hand, builds little bag-shaped nests, the paper-like 
 material of which is of such fineness and perfection that a 
 Parisian paper merchant, to whom the paper was shown 
 without being told its origin, was quite enthusiastic about it, 
 saying that no Parisian merchant could make such paper, it 
 must have been made in Orleans. In Guiana there is a 
 perfectly black wasp (Tatua Morio), which also makes a 
 beautiful nest. It consists of about eight or ten horizontal 
 layers of cells, or combs, lying over each other and fastened 
 round the bough of a tree : the whole is covered with a 
 spindle-shaped covering, which seems as if composed of fine 
 paper, made by an artist hand. 
 
 At Santarem, South America, Bates (loc. cit., ii., p. 40, 
 etc.,) observed a social, yellow and black wasp, (Pelopceus 
 fistularis), which like our mason bee built its nest out of 
 potter's clay. It rolls this with its jaws into little pellets, 
 which it then carries away. Its nest looks like a purse two 
 inches long, and is attached to a branch or other spot. 
 Bates had the opportunity of closely observing the process 
 -of building. Each fresh lump of clay was brought by the
 
 304 THE WASPS. 
 
 wasp- architect with a kind of triumphant song, which, as it 
 began to work, changed into a joyful busy hum. The little 
 clay pellet was laid on the edge of the nest wall, and then 
 spread along it with jaws and under-lip. The building was 
 trodden down all round and smoothed with the feet. The 
 completion of the whole occupied about a week. The 
 interior of these nests is filled up with half-dead spiders, 
 which the mothers bring for the food of the larvae and 
 reduce to this half-dead condition by stinging them, as do 
 these wasps with all insects destined for the nourishment 
 of their young. 
 
 Another species, also observed by Bates (Trypoxylori), 
 builds its three-inch long nest in the form of a water bottle, 
 and makes such a noise over it that when several together 
 are building a house the neighborhood is in quite a commo- 
 tion. They also emit very different notes when they fly in 
 with their load or away, and when they are at work. 
 
 In Europe there are different species of unsocial wall 
 wasps, which mostly belong to the Odynerus species, and dig 
 the holes for their young several inches deep in old clay 
 walls or firm sand banks. They also, in remarkable fashion,, 
 make outside long projecting and very artistically-built 
 chimney-like tubes, which serve as protective entrances to- 
 the nests. An egg is laid inside with from ten to twelve 
 half-dead caterpillars piled upon each other, on which the 
 hatched larva feeds until it begins to spin. The mother 
 knows exactly how many and what sized caterpillars it must 
 bring for each larva, and seems always to select the same 
 species for her young. Wesmael (in Brehm, loc. cit. ix., 
 p. 240) relates that a mason wasp pinched between its jaws 
 a caterpillar rolled up in a leaf until it left its sheltering 
 cover and fell a prey to the hunter ! 
 
 " In the first days of June," says Blanchard (lot. cit. 
 p. 398), " we found ourselves, myself and two friends, in the 
 De'partement du Nord, at a short distance from Denain, 
 when our notice was called to an attractive spectacle. The 
 road was bordered by a bank about two metres high, edging 
 a large clover field. The bank was of firm soil and faced 
 the full mid-day sun. Thousands, nay, hundreds of thou- 
 sands of wasps were flying over the clover field, and picking 
 little green caterpillars off the plants with indescribable eager- 
 ness. Others were busy digging holes in the earth, building
 
 THE WASPS. 305 
 
 -chimneys, forming passages ; each single individual followed 
 its own business with exemplary diligence, without troubling 
 itself with its thousand co-laborers. No description could give 
 an adequate picture of this lively and exciting scene. It was 
 life itself in countless changing shapes. All these busy 
 little creatures seemed to know their tasks, or at least acted 
 as though they were fully conscious of the weighty duty they 
 had to discharge in life. Is it not the same feeling, the 
 same emotion, which is the motive power in every kind of 
 society ? Each feels itself useful, indispensable, even in 
 the lowest position. At the foot of the bank, where were 
 the greatest number of insects, their edifices were seen in 
 all stages of completion, for all the individuals had not come 
 into the world at the same time. Some were making holes, 
 others chimneys, others again were attending to the pro- 
 visioning of their cells. The chimneys, as a rule three 
 centimetres long, are slightly bent or curved on the side 
 towards the ground, so that the rain cannot penetrate, and 
 resemble lace (dentelle faconnee) made out of earthy material, 
 a number of little interstices remaining between the circular 
 cylinders or borders. They are therefore very brittle, while 
 they are sufficiently strong for the insects themselves. 
 When the egg is laid and the cell provisioned, this outer 
 court is immediately destroyed, and the entrance closed up 
 with the materials thereby obtained." 
 
 According to Perty (loc. cit., p. 313), one of the mason 
 wasps has been seen which put on its back a caterpillar trying 
 to hold fast with its feet; just as was described earlier 
 among the ants, and so carried it over the leaves to its 
 nest. 
 
 Similar, but simpler than the mason wasp, and almost 
 exactly as Herr Markel, of Gumbinnen, has described it, 
 is the ever-active common sand wasp (Ammophila sabulosa), 
 belonging to the large family of the solitary butcher wasps, 
 or Sphegidce. It digs a hole in sandy soil, puts in a captive 
 caterpillar or spider, disabled by bite and sting, buries its 
 victim when it has laid an egg thereupon, and covers over 
 both. The larva, hatched in a few days, eats up the half- 
 alive prey, and then spins its cocoon, from which, when the 
 pupa stage is ended, it flies off as a wasp. In Bingley (loc. 
 cit. iv., p. 139) is found a description of the whole proceed- 
 ing, observed by a Mr. Ray, which agrees with that of Herr
 
 306 THE WASPS. 
 
 Markel, almost word for word. The caterpillar put in was 
 three times as large as the insect. The latter first pulled 
 away a little ball of earth with which it had covered the 
 opening of the hole, visited the interior, and then pulled in 
 the caterpillar. The hole was then filled up with little 
 stones and sand, and the earth smoothed over. At last the 
 insect put two small pointed leaves on the spot where the 
 opening had been, apparently, as the observer thought, so 
 as to recognise the place again!* The North American blue 
 sand wasp (Sphex or Ammophila c>/anea, Ichneumon ccerulea), 
 described by Bates, acts just in the same way as is related 
 by this writer of the Pelopceus fistularis. It builds cylin- 
 drical clay cells or clay tubes with divisions for its eggs, 
 and fills them with captured insects, such as spiders, as food 
 for the young when hatched. During building it emits a 
 peculiar singing note, which can be heard at ten yards 
 distance, and which seems to lighten its toil. It carries off 
 spiders as large as itself, and, when they are too heavy to 
 fly with, pulls them along the ground. Mr. jCatesby 
 weighed a wasp and a spider carried by it into the nest, 
 and found the weight of the latter to be eight times as 
 great as that of the former. 
 
 The grasshoppers, which the Pennsylvanian sand wasp 
 (Ammophila or Sphex Pennsylvania) carries into its holes as 
 food for its young, are, as a rule, stronger and larger than 
 the robber, which falls upon them suddenly from behind 
 and disables them with its sting, so that they can make no 
 resistance. As already mentioned, all the butcher wasps treat 
 their prey in this fashion, and with the well-conceived 
 design of making them defenceless but of not killing them, 
 as they would otherwise soon decay in the nests and so be 
 useless for the proposed object. There are also some digging 
 wasps which, like Bembex, bring daily fresh nourishment to 
 their young. 
 
 According to Taschenberg (in Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 277), 
 Gueinzius saw a butcher wasp (Pompilus Natalensis) which 
 followed a large female spider through the open door into 
 
 * According to Taschenberg (Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 283,) the sand 
 wasp shuts off the entrance of its nest in a similar way, in order to 
 make it impossible for parasitic insects flying about to lay their eggs 
 therein.
 
 THE WASPS. 307 
 
 the interior of his house, here disabled the poor creature 
 after a desperate defence, and then, after a dance of triumph 
 round its victim, carried it out of the door. According to 
 the same author the hunting of the spider by the butcher 
 wasps was already known to Aristotle. 
 
 The patience of the butcher wasps in attaining their 
 object is wonderful. Fabre took away its prey from a Sphex 
 wasp, which had carried away a slain grasshopper to its 
 earth-hole, at the moment when it had crawled into the hole 
 to visit it, and laid it down at a certain distance forty times 
 over. But forty times it brought it back and went into the 
 hole again on each occasion ere it prepared to pull it in 
 (Brehm, loc. cit., ix., p. 280). The prize is often stolen away 
 by other wasps at this moment. 
 
 Specially interesting among the butcher wasps, owing to 
 its striking behavior, is Philanthus apivorus, or the bee- 
 eater, which hovers carelessly among the flowers as though 
 it had nothing more to wish for. But those who watch it 
 carefully will soon see an interesting spectacle. A bee 
 appears ; it is busily engaged gathering honey and pollen, 
 and enthralled with its work gives no heed to its surround- 
 ings. The crafty Philanthus watches it closely, and when 
 the opportunity appears favorable, darts at it with indescrib- 
 able speed. It seizes it between head and thorax, and 
 always succeeds in flinging it on its shoulders and piercing it 
 with its sting. The bee naturally makes the most energetic 
 resistance, but the Philanthus is more dexterous, and scarcely 
 ever fails in securing its prey. After it is stung the bee 
 writhes a brief space, tries to sting, stretches out its pro- 
 boscis, and then falls down motionless. The murderer 
 seizes it with jaws and feet and hurries away to its nest. 
 Arrived thereat, it halts a moment, as though suspecting 
 danger. It then picks up its prey again, brings it into the 
 hole, lays an egg on it, closes up the place, and disappears. 
 Its audacity is sometimes so great that it will even approach 
 the beehive, although it is there menaced by the greatest 
 peril, and invite open battle. Perhaps it is the Crabo of the 
 old Romans, which, according to the description of the 
 poets, fights imparibus armis (with unequal arms). 
 
 The habits of the ichneumon-flies, or Ichneumonidce, are 
 also deserving of notice ; these seek the eggs, larvae and 
 pupae of other insects in order to insert their own eggs
 
 308 THE WASPS. 
 
 therein by means of a long ovipositor, and thereby to obtain 
 sufficient nourishment for the hatched grubs. They most 
 frequently select the caterpillars of butterflies, which con- 
 tinue to live and to eat with the foreign guest in their bodies 
 until the parasite injures some vital part and becomes a 
 pupa. The mother, moreover, is not indifferent what young 
 she chooses for her posterity ; she also knows with marvel- 
 lous skill how to snatch a suitable opportunity, however 
 hidden it may be. Thomas Marsham (in Bingley, loc. cit. 
 iv., p. 134) observed in June, 1787, an ichneumon-fly on a 
 wooden post in Kensington Gardens. It was moving rapidly, 
 holding its antennae bent downwards. It felt about with 
 these until it discovered the hole of an insect. When this 
 was found it popped in its head and antennas, and waited 
 for about a minute in this position seeming very busy. The 
 hole was then examined with equal care from the other 
 side. The insect next turned round, measured the distance, 
 and inserted into the hole the long ovipositor at the end of 
 its abdomen. It remained in this situation for about two 
 minutes, drew out the ovipositor, flew round the 'hole, and 
 felt about in it again with its antennas for about a minute. 
 The ovipositor was then again introduced. The whole 
 operation was repeated three times, one after another, before 
 the eyes of the observer, but he approached too closely in 
 order to see more exactly, and the insect flew away. 
 
 A week later Mr. Marsham saw several ichneumon-flies 
 at work at the same place. They were apparently driving 
 their ovipositors half their length into the firm wood, a thing 
 that seemed impossible. But more exact investigation 
 showed that the boring was made each time into the middle 
 of a small white spot which consisted of fine white sand, and 
 was a hole made by the Apis maxillosa (a species of bee) 
 within which was a young bee larva. In very deep unclosed 
 holes the creature sometimes crawled backwards so far that 
 only its head, two fore-legs and wings, outstretched like arms, 
 were visible. Mr. Marsham often saw the fly leave the hole 
 again after investigating it, clearly because it had found it 
 empty. 
 
 The fact that the solitary insects do not reach the high 
 grade of intelligence and ingenuity evinced by their social 
 relations, living in ordered communities, may easily be 
 explained by the influence of the society itself, and by the
 
 THE WASPS. 309 
 
 highly-developed division of labor found in those States. 
 It is not otherwise among men, and culture only attain- ii- 
 highest development when an ordered polity assigns to each 
 his individual place, where the common life and the common 
 work of many for a common object develops the slumbering 
 powers and capacities of each, whereas these powers would 
 remain ever in concealment among solitary, unsocial men. 
 And have we not already seen in the humble bee that the 
 manifestation of its intelligence and its industry appears in 
 the measure in which its societies increase?
 
 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 x2
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 GENERAL DETAILS. 
 
 THERE is none the less among insects (in the wider sense), 
 or among articulate animals, one class of creatures 
 which in spite of their proverbial tendency to insulation, 
 must, on account of their intellectual powers as well as of 
 their ingenuity, be set by the side of the insects hitherto 
 spoken of, while the same can be said of no other class or 
 family, with the exception perhaps of some species of beetles. 
 This class consists of the hated, feared and despised spiders, 
 which only seem to exist in order that anyone who sees 
 them may as quickly as possible destroy, drive away, or kill 
 them. Those, however, who study their ways and doings 
 will, in spite of their hideous exterior, feel themselves on 
 nearer knowledge to be attracted rather than repelled. 
 
 " For all students," says Blanchard (loc.cit.,p. 669), " the 
 spiders are the most interesting creatures of the animated 
 world. In the most perfect representatives of this class we 
 find narrowed into the smallest compass a richness of 
 organisation which equals the greatest marvels of anatomy. 
 The most remarkable instincts and often intelligence, are 
 found therein, manifesting themselves in actions of the 
 highest reason." 
 
 " The disposition and conduct of spiders," says Giebel 
 (loc. cit., p. 370) " claim the greatest interest, and in no way 
 justify the common contempt and avoidance. Their move- 
 ments are rapid, powerful and dexterous, their sensibility 
 very great, their endurance, their courage on attack, their 
 skill in the web, their tenacity of life, are wonderful. All 
 their life-phamomena enthrall the attentive observer." 
 
 " Among all hunting animals," says Fee (loc. cit., p. 104), 
 " there is not one which can compare with spiders and with 
 their skill in setting nets to catch their prey. Nor has any 
 their patience and endurance." 
 
 " Looking at the animal scale from below upwards," says
 
 314 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 Scheitlin (foe. c#., p. 429), " we see the spider very far up, 
 and we might almost fancy that a small or, indeed, any 
 animal could not climb further." 
 
 Spiders have also received justice from teachers in the 
 earliest times. King Solomon recommended them to his 
 courtiers as a model of industry, skill, prudence, self- 
 restraint and virtue ; and Aristotle, as the oldest naturalist, 
 gave them his full attention. 
 
 The web of the spider, which it spins in the most different 
 places for catching its prey, has attracted most notice, and 
 it has been regarded, like the cells of the bee, as the result 
 of a peculiar inborn and instinctive artistic impulse. But 
 far more even than the bee-cells does the spider-web differ 
 and change with every variety of circumstance and position. 
 Each species of spider or, we may say, each individual 
 spider, follows its own peculiar plan in forming its web, and 
 knows how to make it so as to suit the place, or to adapt it 
 to circumstances. While the cross-spider spins the well- 
 known and much admired wheel-shaped web and, hangs it 
 perpendicularly, the sack-spider makes flat purse-shaped hori- 
 zontally hanging nets, the threads of which run irregularly 
 through each other and in the depth is a little bag for the 
 reception of the maker. The famous Malmignatto of Corsica, 
 Sardinia and a part of the Italian mainlands, only makes 
 single threads from stones and posts haunted by large 
 insects. Some build horizontal, some perpendicular nets. 
 Garden-spiders spin threads from the ground to projecting 
 stones, and catch in these no flying but only running and 
 jumping insects. The species belonging to the genus Scytodes 
 weave their strong horizontal webs behind into a narrow 
 tube serving as a hiding-place, and spin radiating threads 
 from its opening. Many species do not spin any webs, but 
 prefer to catch their prey in a shorter fashion by springing 
 and running. They only draw thread from their spinnerets, 
 with which all true spiders are provided, for special purposes, 
 as for instance for covering their eggs. The most dreaded 
 amongst them are the tiger-spiders, which run about on 
 walls, and creep slowly towards their victim in cat-like 
 fashion, suddenly pouncing upon it from above with a 
 powerful spring of as much as two inches. Others again, like 
 the large bird-catching or hunting spider \_Mygale avicularia. 
 TR.] lurk in earth-holes, holes in branches, under stones,
 
 THE SPIDERS. 315 
 
 leaves, etc., watching for their prey, while still others, like 
 the so-called trap-door spiders, of which we shall presently 
 give more details, only go out hunting at night, and remain 
 during the day in underground passages dug out by them- 
 selves, the opening closed by a cover which they can open and 
 shut at pleasure. As spiders spin different kinds of webs, 
 says an intelligent writer in Chamber's Journal, so also they 
 live in all kinds of houses ; and there is as much difference 
 between these as between a Gothic tower and an Italian 
 villa, between a Swiss chalet and a wigwam in the Terra del 
 Fuego. 
 
 One of the most artistic nets is spun by the Epeira basilica, 
 quite lately observed by the Rev. H. C. McCook, of Phila- 
 delphia, during his Texan ant excursions on the banks of the 
 Colorado. Within a large pyramid-shaped net of irregularly 
 interwoven threads, hangs an extremely neatly spun semi- 
 spherical dome, from three to eight inches wide at the 
 bottom, resembling to a certain extent the dome-shaped 
 temples or basilicas of the early Christians, and thence the 
 architect takes its name ! "I have," says the discoverer, 
 " never met with a prettier piece of work among the many 
 spider's webs that I have seen and studied." From the 
 centre of the dome hangs the gracefully-shaped, brilliantly 
 colored, glittering builder, and watches for its prey. But 
 what makes this spider particularly interesting is that it 
 forms a perfect link or gradation between the wheel and 
 the web-spiders a fact more fully discussed by Mr. McCook 
 in his article (" Proc. of the Aca. of Nat. of Philadelphia," 
 April, 1878). 
 
 That all spiders use their threads for other purposes than 
 weaving their webs and before all things for making their 
 cocoons, as well as for getting from place to place, descend- 
 ing from heights, for flight, for enveloping their victims, for 
 lining their dwellings, for protection against the cold of 
 winter, etc. is so well known that it scarcely needs men- 
 tion. It is less well known that the emerged young at first 
 merely spin a very irregular web, and only gradually learn 
 to make a larger and finer one, so that here again as every- 
 where else practice and experience play a great part. 
 
 Practice, experience, and reflexion must also guide the 
 spider in the important choice of the locality in which it 
 shall spin its nest, in order to catch the largest amount of
 
 316 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 prey. Before all it likes those places where the rays of the 
 sun and dancing midges may be united with the possibility 
 of a hidden retreat for itself, or where a slight draught blows 
 flying insects into its outspread nest, or where ripe fruits 
 attract them. The position must also offer favorable oppo- 
 site points for the attachment of the web itself. People 
 have often puzzled their brains, wondering how spiders, 
 without being able to fly, had managed first to stretch 
 their web through the air between two opposite points. But 
 the little creature succeeds in accomplishing this difficult task 
 in the most various and ingenious ways. It either, when 
 the distance is not too great, throws a moist viscid pellet, 
 joined to a thread, which will stick where it touches ; or 
 hangs itself by a thread in the air and lets itself be driven 
 by the wind to the spot; or crawls there, letting out a thread 
 as it goes, and then pulls it taut when arrived at the desired 
 place ; or floats a number of threads in the air and waits till 
 the wind has thrown them here or there. The main or 
 radial threads which fasten the web possess suAh a high 
 degree of elasticity, that they tighten themselves between 
 two distant points to which the spider has crawled, without 
 it being necessary for the latter to pull them towards itself. 
 When the little artist has once got a single thread at its dis- 
 position, it strengthens this until it is sufficiently strong for 
 it to run backwards and forwards thereupon, and to spin 
 therefrom the web. It behaves, therefore, exactly as did 
 men when they spanned the terrible fall of Niagara with a 
 <'liam-bridge. A paper-kite, such as children play with, 
 was carried by the wind to the opposite side, and the strong 
 cord which held it was used to draw over a heavier rope. 
 The rope served the same purpose in its turn, and from this 
 weak beginning the giant work was completed which now, 
 like a spider's web, spans the flood and joins America to 
 England. 
 
 The long main threads, with the help of which the spider 
 begins and attaches its web, are always the thickest and 
 strongest, while the others, forming the web itself, are con- 
 siderably weaker. Injuries to the web at any spot the 
 spider very quickly repairs, but without keeping to the 
 original plan, and without taking more trouble than is abso- 
 lutely necessary. Most spiders' webs, therefore, if closely 
 looked into are found to be somewhat irregular. When a
 
 THE SPIDElfS. 317 
 
 storm threatens, the spider, which is very economical with its 
 valuable spinning material, spins no web, for it knows that 
 the storm will tear it in pieces and waste its pains, and it 
 also does not mend a web which has been torn. If it is seen 
 spinning or mending, on the other hand, fine weather may 
 generally be reckoned on, so that spiders have long served 
 as weather prophets. Steady, fine weather is coming when 
 the cross-spider weaves slowly and regularly ; less good when 
 it shows a certain amount of haste and as it were scamps its 
 work. If it stretches a number of threads to strengthen its 
 web, wind is to be looked for. The cross-spider in fine 
 weather also sits in the middle of its web, while at night or 
 in bad weather it draws back into a corner, whence it darts 
 at its prey. If the latter be very large, so that the spider 
 cannot master it or can only do so with difficulty, such as a 
 bluebottle fly, a wasp, a bee, a grasshopper, etc., the robber 
 approaches slowly and doubtfully, and generally prefers to 
 let it escape, whereas smaller victims are at once spun over 
 and so rendered defenceless. The spider has sometimes 
 even been seen in the former cases to aid the escape of its 
 unwelcome prisoner by biting through some of the threads. 
 At other times, as Dr. Vinsou observed with a Madagascan 
 spider, it draws in front of or through the web proper a 
 specially thick and strong thread, which is designed to hold 
 such stronger insects or to prevent them from tearing the 
 web. 
 
 It often happens that a widely spread web is not tightly 
 enough stretched, and is more swayed backwards and for- 
 wards by the wind than is either convenient or useful to the 
 spider. The sensible creature knows how to improve mat- 
 ters, and spins some strong threads from the ground upwards, 
 attaching them to stones, plants, or other projecting points. 
 This proceeding has indeed the disadvantage that men or 
 animals passing beneath the web often tear the threads. 
 But even then the spider manages to get out of the difficulty 
 in a way which shows so high a grade of intelligence that 
 one would hesitate to mention it, did it not depend on trust- 
 worthy observations. Gleditsch had already related how he 
 saw a spider, in order to draw a web more tightly between 
 two trees, let itself down by a thread to the ground, seize a 
 small stone and then remount, fastening the stone to the 
 lower part of its web so that people could pass comfortably
 
 SIS THE SPIDERS. 
 
 below it. But a similar observation was made by Professor 
 E. H. Weber, the famous anatomist aud physiologist, and 
 was published many years ago in Muller's Journal. A spider 
 had stretched its web between two posts standing opposite 
 each other, and had fastened it to a plant below for the third 
 point. But as the attachment below was often broken by 
 the garden work, by passers-by and in other ways, the little 
 animal extricated itself from the difficulty by spinning its 
 web round a little stone, and fastened this to the lower part 
 of its web, swinging freely, and so to draw the web down by 
 its weight instead of fastening it in this direction by a con- 
 necting thread. Carus (" Comp. Psychology, 1866," p. 76,) 
 also made a similar observation. But the most interesting 
 observation on this head is related by J. G. Wood (" Glimpses 
 into Petland,") and repeated by Watson (loc. cit., p. 455). 
 One of my friends, says Wood, was accustomed to grant 
 shelter to a number of garden spiders under a large verandah^ 
 and to watch their habits. One day a sharp storm broke 
 out, and the wind raged so furiously through the* garden, 
 that the spiders suffered damage from it, although sheltered 
 by the verandah. The mainyards of one of these webs, as 
 the sailors would call them, were broken, so that the web was 
 blown hither and thither, like a slack sail in a storm. The 
 spider made no fresh threads, but tried to help itself in 
 another way. It let itself down to the ground by a thread 
 and crawled to a place where lay some splintered pieces of a 
 wooden fence thrown down by the storm. It fastened a 
 thread to one of the bits of wood, turned back with it and 
 hung it with a strong thread to the lower part of its nest, 
 about five feet from the ground. The performance was a 
 wonderful one, for the weight of the wood sufficed to keep 
 the nest tolerably firm, while it was yet light enough to 
 yield to the wind and so prevent further injury. The piece 
 of wood was about two and a-half inches long and as thick 
 as a goose-quill. On the following day a careless servant 
 knocked her head against the wood and it fell down. But 
 in the course of a few hours the spider had found it and 
 brought it back to its place. When the storm ceased, the 
 spider mended her web, broke the supporting thread in two, 
 and let the wood fall to the ground ! 
 
 The spiders are generally very careful about keeping their 
 webs clean, partly because it then better serves its object,
 
 THE SPIDERS. 319 
 
 partly because it then rouses no suspicion of artifice among 
 the victims swarming around. They therefore not only 
 shake them from time to time so as to cleanse them from dust, 
 but rid them directly of all larger rubbish accidently falling 
 into them. Herr A. Frenzel, a smelting chemist, writes 
 as follows to the author under date November 14th, 1875. 
 from Freiberg, in Sa'xony : " One day on rising from dinner 
 I went into a room with a splinter in my hand, which I had 
 used as a toothpick. A spider of the genus Epeira has 
 spun her vertical web over a window in this room and sat 
 quietly in the middle. I idly bit little bits off the splinter 
 to bombard the spider with. I did not hit the spider but 
 only the web, in which the bits remained hanging. When 
 I had finished my bombardment the spider ran to the 
 nearest bit, seized it, ran to the lower edge of the web, and let 
 it fall to the ground. This manoeuvre was repeated until 
 every bit of wood had been cleared off the web. After a 
 second attack on its abode with wood-splinters, the spider 
 did not shrink from a second cleansing of its web." That 
 in spite of their extreme shyness, spiders can be tamed, and 
 become accustomed to human beings which show them kind- 
 nesses is proved by many facts and experiments which have 
 attained to a certain amount of fame. Prisoners especially, 
 in order to soften the rigors of solitude, have tamed spiders, 
 so that they came at their call and took food from their 
 hands, like the spiders of the unfortunate king Christian II. 
 of Denmark. Dr. Moschkau, of Gohlis, near Leipsic, writes 
 as follows to the author, on August 28th, 1876 : "In Oder- 
 witz (?). where I lived in 1873 and 1874, I noticed one day 
 in a half -dark corner of the ante-room a tolerably respect- 
 able spider's web, in which a well-fed cross-spider had 
 made its home, and sat at the nest-opening early and late, 
 watching for some flying or creeping food. I was acci- 
 dentally several times a witness of the craft with which it 
 caught its victim and rendered it harmless, and it soon 
 became a regular duty to carry it flies several times during 
 the day, which I laid down before its door with a pair of 
 pincers. At first this feeding seemed to arouse small confi- 
 dence, the pincers perhaps being in fault, for it let many of 
 the flies escape again, or only seized them when it knew 
 that they were within reach of its abode. After awhile, 
 however, the spider came each time and took the flies out of
 
 320 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 
 
 the pincers and spun them over. The latter business was 
 sometimes done so superficially, when I gave flies very 
 quickly one after the other, that some of the already 
 ensnared flies found time and opportunity to escape. This 
 game was carried on by me for some weeks, as it seemed to 
 me curious. But one day when the spider seemed veiy 
 ravenous, and regularly flew at each fly offered to it, I 
 began teasing it. As soon as it had got hold of the fly I 
 pulled it back again with the pincers. It took this exceed- 
 ingly ill. The first time, as I finally left the fly with it, it 
 managed to forgive me, but when I later took a fly right 
 away, our friendship was destroyed for ever. On the 
 following day it treated my offered flies with contempt and 
 would not move, and on the third day it had disappeared." 
 
 This shoAvs that a spider can be both hurt and 
 offended. And, indeed, its little mind is not incapable of 
 the feeling of revenge. At least in Marquart's " Les 
 faculte's inte'rieures" p. 163, there is a communication from 
 Reklus, according to which a spider inflicted a very 
 poisonous bite on the forehead of a young man, 'who for 
 several days, one after the other, destroyed her web spun 
 each day in a very favorable position over a hole in a 
 roof. 
 
 More certain than this is the remarkable love of spiders 
 for music, which has been established by trustworthy and 
 numerous observations. Spiders living in a room are 
 attracted out by the playing of a piano, guitar, or violin, 
 especially when the music is tender and not too loud. They 
 approach as close as possible to the instrument and to the 
 player, and seem so bewitched by it that they pay no 
 attention to anything else. They are often seen to let 
 themselves down by a thread from the ceiling of the room, 
 so as to get as near as possible to the player. As soon, 
 however, as the music becomes noisy they run back to their 
 nest. Professor C. Reclam ("Body and Mind," 1859, 
 p. 275), at a concert at Leipsic saw a spider which let itself 
 down from one of the chandeliers during the playing of a violin 
 solo, whereas each time that the orchestra broke in it ran 
 swiftly back to its hiding-place. Similar observations have 
 been published by Rabigot, Simonius, von Hartmaun and 
 others. 
 
 Spiders also know how to feign themselves dead, like so
 
 THE SPIDERS. .izJ 
 
 many other insects, when their life is in peril, and manifest 
 therein a real heroic indifference. " I have," says Smellie (in 
 Bingley, loc. cit. iv., p. 232), " run needles through spiders 
 under these circumstances, and torn them in pieces, without 
 their betraying the slightest symptom of pain."
 
 322 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 VARIOUS SPECIES OF SPIDERS. 
 
 ONE of the most interesting of the species of spiders is the 
 Argyroneta aquatica, a swimmer- spider which should 
 be regarded as the discoverer of the diving-bell. This 
 remarkable creature lives with us in almost all stagnant 
 pools, and stays under water for hours, although, like every 
 other spider, it would be drowned by the entrance of water 
 into its air-sacs, if it did not know how to prevent it. It 
 raises its abdomen above the surface of the water, surrounds 
 it with an air-bubble and dives down, the air being held 
 apparently by the downy coating of its body, and looking 
 like a glittering ball of silver or mercury. Arrived below, 
 it seeks a place where water-plants grow thickly together, 
 and rubs its legs against its abdomen till it loosens the air 
 bubble, which is held down by the tangle of plants. This 
 done it rises again to the surface, and repeats the pro- 
 ceeding until it has collected a good quantity of air at the 
 same spot. It then surrounds this air with a very fine but 
 thick web, which has perfectly the shape of a diving-bell, 
 and is attached all round by stretched out threads. If the 
 bell is not quite full of air, new bubbles are brought from 
 the surface in the same Avay and emptied into it, and now, 
 complete, it looks like a shining silver bell. In this poetical 
 abode, reminding one of the " Arabian Nights' Tales," the 
 insect lives, carries there its food and brings up its young. 
 It hunts not only in the water but also on dry land, but 
 always takes its prey to its hidden crystal palace. If any 
 store of food remains after its hunger is satisfied, it is care- 
 fully attached to the diving-bell by threads. The male 
 builds its light dwelling close by that of the female, and 
 unites them by an opening or covered gallery. So live the 
 wedded pair, each in its own house, in peaceful unity side 
 by side, busied only with the care of their family, far from
 
 TIIK SPIDERS. 323 
 
 the bustle of the world, but yet ever supplied thence 
 with the slightly softened beams of dazzling light. Happy 
 spider couple ! 
 
 In captivity the clever insect so thoroughly adapts itself 
 to circumstances that it either hangs its bell to the side of 
 the vessel, or if plants fail, draws some threads crosswise 
 through the water, and hangs the bell between them. Our 
 artist gladly passes the winter in an empty snailshell, closing 
 the opening with an ingenious web. 
 
 Less idyllic than the water-spider is our native hunting- 
 spider (Dolomedes Jimbriata), which belongs to those species 
 which spin no web, but hunt their victims like animals of 
 prey. As the Argyroneta is the discoverer of the diving- 
 bell, so may this be regarded as the discoverer or first 
 builder of a floating raft. It is not content with hunting 
 insects on land, but follows them on the water, on the 
 surface of which it runs about with ease. It, however, needs 
 a place to rest on, and makes it by rolling together dry 
 leaves and such-like bodies, binding them into a firm whole 
 with its silken threads. On this raft-like vessel it floats 
 at the mercy of wind and waves, and if an unlucky water- 
 insect comes for an instant to the surface of the water to 
 breathe, the spider darts at it with lightning speed and 
 carries it back to its raft to devour at its ease. Thus every- 
 where in nature are battle, craft and ingenuity, all following 
 the merciless law of egoism, in order to maintain their own 
 lives and to destroy those of others ! 
 
 The largest and most dreaded of all the spiders is the tropical 
 bird-catching or hunting-spider (Mygale avicularia), belonging 
 to the family of the tube-spinners (Tubitelce). Its strong 
 powerful mandibular palpi rise threateningly from the upper 
 edge of the maxillae, and, with the help of these, it is able not 
 only to master large insects, but also lizards, and even small 
 birds. The latter fact has been doubted, but has been anew 
 confirmed by Bates from his personal observation (loc. cit. 
 i., p. 160). He saw a Myyale near the Amazon River 
 which, with outstretched legs, measured seven, and, without 
 them, two, inches long. Body and legs were covered with 
 strong grey and red hair. Bates' attention was drawn to 
 the hateful monster by a movement he noticed on a tree- 
 trunk. He looked more closely at a deep crevice in the 
 tree, which was covered by a thick white web. The lower
 
 324 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 part of the web was broken, and two small birds of the 
 finch tribe were covered with the threads. They were about 
 the size of the English siskin, and Bates thought they were 
 cock and hen. One bird was quite dead; the other lay 
 half-alive under the spider, smeared with the monster's filthy 
 saliva. Bates drove away the spider and rescued the bird, 
 which, however, died immediately. 
 
 The Mygale species are, as Bates adds, very numerous in 
 Brazil. Some build under stones, others make tunnels in 
 earth, and others, again, make holes in the thatched roofs 
 of houses. The natives call them Aranhas carangueijares, 
 or crab-spiders. The hairs with which they are covered 
 remain sticking in the skin if they are touched, and cause 
 a very painful irritation. Many are of enormous size. 
 Bates one day saw some children which had fastened a 
 string round the body of a Mygale, and pulled it behind 
 them like a dog. Near Para, on the mouth of the Amazon, 
 the Mygales are very numerous in sandy places, and exhibit 
 the most various habits. Many build on or in houses nests 
 or places of refuge of a fine close web much resembling fine 
 muslin. Others build similar nests in trees, and it is these 
 which catch birds. The Mygale blondii, a red-brown, hair- 
 covered monster, five inches long, digs a tunnel in the earth 
 about two feet long and two inches in diameter, the inner wall 
 of which it tapestries with a handsome silver-like shining 
 web. It only goes hunting at night, and shortly before 
 sunset it may be seen watching at the month of its hole, 
 swiftly disappearing within if it hears a heavy footfall in its 
 neighborhood. Passing insects fall victims to its murderous 
 bitei 
 
 Almost exactly in the same fashion behaves the mining, 
 or as Moggridgc named it, the trap-door spider (Mygale or 
 Cteniza cccmentaria and fodicns, first designated by Moggridge 
 as the Nemesia cccmentaria), an inhabitant of the South of 
 Europe, also belonging to the family of the tube-spiders or, 
 more exactly, to the Territelaria (earth-workers) ; this 
 animal, on account of the skill and the ingenuity with 
 which it builds its subterranean dwelling, and protects it 
 against attack from without, carries away the palm unchal- 
 lenged among all species of spiders with regard to interest 
 and intelligence, although it is far behind its Brazilian 
 relations in bodily size. The mandibular palpi of the Mygale
 
 THE SPIDERS. 325 
 
 fodiens are armed with a kind of sharp rake, while its feet 
 carry teeth like a comb. With the help of these instruments 
 the animal digs out subterranean tunnels or passages, in 
 which it can retire or hide as it pleases. The interior of 
 this dwelling is lined in carefullest fashion with a fine 
 silken web. At the entrance a door is made which, to fitly 
 describe, as Blanchard said, all expressions of wonder would 
 be insufficient. It has the shape of a lid, and consists of 
 pieces of earth bound together with silken material. It is 
 very thick, and is broader above than below, so as to close 
 the hole as completely as possible. Its outer surface has 
 exactly the appearance and condition of the surrounding 
 ground, so that nothing betrays its presence, while the inner 
 surface, like the rest of the dwelling, is lined with silken 
 web. But this is not enough; the door, like all proper 
 doors, has lock and hinge. The hinge 'is made of a very 
 thick and strong silk ; the lock consists of a row of small 
 holes, into which the spider dwelling within inserts its 
 claws, in order to hold the door fast from inside in case of 
 approaching danger. When it goes out to hunt at night 
 it lifts up the door and lets it fall behind it, just as do 
 dwellers in human holes or cellar-dwellings. On its return 
 it pulls the door up with its feet, and so glides into its 
 subterranean abode. 
 
 The habits of this remarkable creature have been most 
 exactly studied and described by J. T. Moggridge who 
 also so admirably observed the harvesting ants in his 
 already often-named book, "Harvesting Ants and Trap- 
 door Spiders." According to him, the animal first became 
 known in the second half of the last century by thorough 
 observers like P. Browne, Sauvages and Rossi, and is 
 therefore, with regard to antiquity and fame hallowed by 
 ages, far behind ants and bees. 
 
 Without doubt, says Moggridge, 'are the webs and cylinders 
 of common spiders very wonderful pieces of art, but in com- 
 parison with the works of the trap-door spiders they are 
 no more than is a common tunnel, for instance, as compared 
 with the tunnel of Mont Cenis. It is enchanting to see 
 with what patience and skill the little creature, which must 
 be reckoned one of the best natural artificers and discoverers, 
 overcomes all diiliculties and dangers. 
 
 I'ntil Moggridge who was inspired and led to his studies
 
 326 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 by the lion. Mrs. Richard Boyle, and who assigns to her 
 the priority of discovery only the two simplest forms of 
 nest of the trap-door spider were known, while he has de- 
 scribed several further forms which, by their complexity, 
 not only prove the extraordinary ingenuity of the creature, 
 but also seem to confirm the proposition long established by 
 other experiments, and so overwhelmingly important in 
 judging the intellectual capacities of animals, that progress 
 and perfection are not the inheritance of man alone, but 
 also, though in smaller measure, are to be met with among 
 animals. 
 
 Of the two simple, or simplest forms of nest, the one 
 which Moggridge calls the single door cork nest, has already 
 been practically described. The other, which he names the 
 single door wafer nest, is only found in the West Indies, and 
 has merely a thin oblate-shaped door, made of silken web 
 without mixture of earth, which lies loose over the mouth 
 of the nest, without, as in the other simple form, entering 
 like a cork into the opening of the cylinder. 
 
 The West Indian nests are far stronger and tougher than 
 are the European, and have also a somewhat different form, 
 giving them some likeness to a stocking. They are the 
 work of the Cteniza nidiilans, and Mr. P. H. Gosse, who 
 has admirably described them, shows that there is the 
 greatest difference in the amount of finish given to them. 
 They are all, however, furnished within with soft delicate 
 silvery silken material. 
 
 The other simple, or cork nest, differs at the first 
 glance from the one above described by the much greater 
 thickness of the door, and the therefore different fashion of 
 closure. But between these two forms there is another, 
 described by Professor Westwood (" Trans, of the Entom. 
 Soc. London," 1841-43), a transitional form, built by the 
 Ctef:a wdijicatorivs. According to Moggridge, also, very 
 nearly allied species sometimes build very unlike nests, 
 while very distinct species often build very like or almost 
 .similar ones a fact exceedingly against the instinct theory. 
 This fact, however, is all the more surprising as all the 
 working-instruments, especially the claw-like endings of the 
 feet, seem to be very differently shaped in species far apart 
 from each other, the converse being also true. 
 
 The nests are often very hard to find, for they are gene-
 
 THE SPIDERS. 327 
 
 rally in damp shady places or shelving banks, where rubbish, 
 rolled down earth, or rank vegetation covers them as much 
 as possible. Sloping banks are also^generally chosen, so 
 that the doors may fall too by their' own weight without 
 difficulty, while the nests are very seldom found in flat 
 ground. The door^ as a rule, shuts very firmly and securely, 
 although Moggridge, who investigated a large number of 
 nests, here also found great individual differences between 
 members of the same species. Cleverness is, therefore, a 
 talent which is as differently divided among spiders as among 
 men. 
 
 When Moggridge moved such a door with the point of 
 a penknife, it was at once slowly drawn downwards, like 
 the shutting down of the shell of a limpet. He then 
 tried to open the door, in spite of the vigorous counter- 
 efforts of the inhabitant, and saw how the spider held on 
 with all its might, lying on its back and having hooked its 
 feet fast into the silken covering of the lower part of the 
 door. Moggridge did not force any wider opening, but cut 
 out of the ground the upper part of the nest with the spider. 
 It was then seen that the little holes on the inner part of 
 the door, which the spider used for a hold for his feet, were 
 only found on the part of the door away from the hinge, 
 thus exactly where they were wanted with the object of 
 holding fast. These holes, further, were not present in any 
 other nests. 
 
 A nest found accidentally in digging up a plant which 
 had been brought to Mr. Moggridge was quite covered on 
 the surface with moss, and the moss grew on the surface of 
 the door itself, and looked exactly like that growing all 
 round. The deception was so complete that Mr. Moggridge 
 was unable to distinguish the closed door, even when he 
 held the nest in his hand. This is the more remarkable, 
 as from all appearances it must be thought that the spider 
 itself planted the moss on the surface of its door ! 
 
 According to the descriptions given by Moggridge of the 
 newly-discovered and more complicated nests, there is found 
 in these on the surface of the ground a thin oblate-shaped! 
 door, resembling the West Indian form, and, from two to 
 four inches deeper, a second and more strongly or solidly- 
 built door, which last also is very differently shaped, accord- 
 ingly as it belongs to a nest without or with ramifications. 
 
 Y2
 
 328 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 The latter, or ramified form, is the one most frequently 
 met with at Mentone. The main cylinder runs backwards 
 into the earth, either straight or spirally, while the other, 
 or secondary cylinders, bend away upwards at a sharp angle, 
 and either, as is generally the case, end blindly, or, in rare 
 cases, open on the surface of the ground. With the latter 
 arrangement one of the two doors is generally neglected, 
 and the upper part of the cylinder is half stopped up with 
 earth, so that we are forced to conclude that, by some 
 unfortunate mischance, the older door was injured, and the 
 spider prepared a new one instead at another place. The 
 secondary cylinders generally end like blind alleys, as has 
 been said, and Moggridge found that this was always the 
 case with very young spiders. 
 
 In these ramified nests with double doors, the upper door, 
 held by the hinge and its own weight, only lies on the mouth 
 of the nest, and does not enter the passage as in the single 
 cork nest. The lower door also hangs by a hinge from 
 the edge of the corner made by the division into two cylin- 
 ders, and can be turned either way, so as to close the 
 entrance either of the main or of the secondary cylinder. 
 It is from a line to a line and a half thick, of elliptical form, 
 ribbed above, smooth below, and with a flap at its lower 
 end. The whole is made of earth, held together by silken 
 web. When the door hangs so as to close the entrance of 
 the secondary cylinder, it suits its surroundings so well in 
 shape and appearance that it only looks like an unbroken 
 part of the wall of the main passage. 
 
 If the upper part of such a nest be destroyed, the lower 
 door w T ill be seen to be secretly moved and the main cylinder 
 closed off, being evidently pushed by the spider itself from 
 above ; the creature can even sometimes be caught in this 
 situation, its shoulders pushing against the door. But when 
 the spider sees that resistance is useless, it will either hide 
 itself at the end of its cylinder rolled up like a ball, or rush 
 out and strike with its fangs at the disturber of its peace. 
 
 The spider may behave somewhat differently when it has 
 to defend itself against its natural enemies, such as ichneu- 
 mon flies, sand wasps , ants, millipedes, little lizards, etc. 
 It apparently shuts the subterranean door in the main cylin- 
 der first against the assailant, and draws back into the 
 secondary cylinder when the other passage is forced, drawing
 
 THE SPIDERS. 329 
 
 the door after it. The intruder then finds nothing in the 
 main cylinder, and, owing to the similar appearance of the 
 door to the rest of the interior, is unable to discover the 
 presence of the secondary passage ! 
 
 As the outer door, owing to its slight thickness, cannot 
 be clothed with vegetation, like the cork door, the spider 
 endeavors to supply this want by weaving into it as much 
 as possible veiling or deceptive material, such as dry leaves, 
 splinters of wood, roots, grass-stalks, etc., so that it may 
 harmonise with its surroundings. Yet there are some nests 
 in which this manoeuvre is so badly carried out that attention 
 is rather attracted than avoided. Nests which lie on bare 
 ground easily betray themselves by the fact that the doors 
 dry more quickly and more easily than the earth around, 
 and thereby take a lighter color. Leaves act as the best 
 covering, and a single leaf often amply suffices. 
 
 Sometimes the cylinder rises like a chimney between moss, 
 grass, stones, plants, etc., as much as two or three inches 
 above the surface of the ground, and is attached all round 
 by woven silken threads. Such above-ground cylinders were 
 built by a spider (Atypus preens) observed in the neigh- 
 borhood of Paris, but are far more uncommon than the earth 
 tunnels described, and have no doors. 
 
 The second form of nest newly discovered or newly 
 described by Moggridge is again an unramified cylinder, and 
 is the work of Nemesia Eleunora. The second or subter- 
 ranean door lies from one to four inches deeper than the 
 upper, and only serves to close the one somewhat narrowed 
 cylinder. The upper door is for purposes of concealment, 
 the second for purposes of defence. The latter is again 
 made of earth and silken web, is from one to two lines thick, 
 and has in the place of a lock a flap like that of the sub- 
 terranean door of the ramified nest. This flap may serve to 
 lay hold of, and by means of it the door pushed closely into 
 the cylinder at the approach of a foe may again be drawn 
 back when the danger is past. The door itself, as also is 
 that of the ramified nest, is slightly hollowed above and 
 slightly convex below, so that when open it may not inter- 
 fere with free passage through the cylinder. It is somewhat 
 less wide at the upper end than at the lower, so that the 
 somewhat narrowing tube can be better stopped up, just as 
 this is the case in reverse direction of the cork door. It is
 
 330 THE SPIDKRS. 
 
 not us long as the double door of the ramified nest, which has 
 to fulfil a double duty, but is rather broader and closer. All 
 the doors are more or less elliptical, this being necessarily 
 the case as they have to close the cylindrical in a somewhat 
 sloping direction. Yet their outlines are occasionally 
 different, according to the differences in the circumferences 
 of the cylinders. 
 
 Moggridge several times found among the N. Eleanora a 
 larger or smaller number of young ones with the mother in 
 the cylinder, while this never chanced with the other species. 
 He never saw the trap-door spiders, which go out hunting 
 at night, out of the nest during the day, although other 
 observers are said to have seen them. 
 
 Erber relates the following (" Verh. d. k. k. Zool. Bot., 
 Gesellsch of Vienna," Bk. XVIII., pp. 905 and 906) of the 
 Cteniza ariana (cover-spider), found in the island of Tinos 
 in the Greek Archipelago, which he observed by moonlight : 
 " The doors opened soon after nine o'clock ; the spiders 
 came out, fastened the open doors by a few threads to the 
 surrounding grass or small stones, each spun a web of about 
 six inches long and half-an-inch high, and went back into 
 their dwellings. I had selected my position so as to be able 
 to watch three spiders at the same time. They soon had 
 some night beetles caught in their webs, and the spiders 
 seized them at once. They sucked out their juices and 
 pulled their dead bodies some feet away from their holes. 
 On the following morning I again visited the place and 
 found that the nets stretched during the night had wholly 
 vanished. The door of the nest of one of the spiders, which 
 I had captured during the night, was standing open, and I 
 could clearly recognise the threads ornamented with dew- 
 drops with which it had been fastened to the ground." 
 
 On the other hand, according to the information sent to Herr 
 Hansard by a friend, there is a trap-door spider in the island 
 of Formosa, which builds nests like those of Cteniza fodiens, 
 and which is generally seen out of its nest during the day, 
 but as soon as anyone goes near it, it darts into its dwelling, 
 shutting the door behind it. According to Lady Parker 
 these spiders are so common in Australia that scarcely any 
 notice is taken of them. They also are outside in the day- 
 time, and run into their nests vrhen frightened. The doors 
 shut so perfectly that they are very difficult to find. 

 
 THE SPIDERS. 331 
 
 On the other hand, the French trap-door spiders described 
 by de Walkenaar work or hunt only by night. They also 
 spin webs in the neighborhood of their nests. Costa says of 
 the South Italian Nemesia meridionalis that it makes its nest 
 very variously, according to the nature of the ground in 
 which it builds, and that it makes the silken covering the 
 thicker the looser the earth is. In very firm ground the 
 cylinder, except close to the entrance, is smoothed and 
 smeared over, while in other cases the creature builds so 
 strong a tunnel that even when the earth is removed it stands 
 open, the architect having had the prudence to attach it all 
 round to separate steady points. 
 
 Moggridge watched the process of building of a captive 
 spider, after he had previously made a cylindrical hole in 
 the earth. But doors made in such cases are not generally 
 as perfect as the natural ones, as though under the unac- 
 customed conditions the spider did not think it worth while 
 to develop its whole art. They often build none at all, or, 
 against their usual habit, make long closed webs of spun 
 silk, which they stretch between the earth and the gauze 
 covering their prison and in which they hide. These webs 
 have some resemblance to the already described above-ground 
 tubes made by the Atyjnt*. 
 
 All the trap-door spiders kept by Moggridge were busier 
 during the night than during the day. They have less 
 apparently to fear during the night from their enemies 
 (baboons, squirrels, birds, lizards, turtles, frogs, toads, wasps, 
 etc.), while their game, such as ants, beetles, earwigs, wood- 
 lice, etc., are as much about during the night as they are 
 themselves. All trap-door spiders do not spin webs, like 
 those described by Erber, but many lie in wait at the 
 entrance of their dwelling for passing insects, which they 
 catch with a swift spring or grab and pull into their hole, 
 pulling to the half open door behind them or letting it fall. 
 
 If the doors of the trap-door spiders' nests are pulled off, it 
 is found that they are replaced anew. But if they are fastened 
 down firmly with a pin, so that they cannot be opened, the 
 inhabitant makes a fresh opening close by, and provides it 
 with a door. This accident may also often happen naturally 
 by chance events. 
 
 Moggridge one day tied open firmly with a thread three 
 trap-doors standing in a row, so that they could not be shut
 
 332 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 again by the spiders. On the following day, however, he 
 found one of the holes again partly closed, the silken lining 
 being drawn across the opening of the passage from within. 
 The second cylinder was unchanged. The third was tempo- 
 rarily covered by three olive-leaves, spun together and 
 fastened by threads to the edges of the opening of the pas- 
 sage. Two days later a perfect movable door was made of 
 them. Thus each of the three spiders had acted quite dif- 
 ferently, each according to its own view and thought. How 
 could this be instinct ? 
 
 The trap-door spiders very unwillingly leave nests which 
 they have once made. It has sometimes been observed that 
 nests turned completely upside down by the digging of the 
 ground are not left by their inmates, but are made habitable 
 again by carrying the tunnel to the surface of the ground 
 and the formation of a new door. In all cases no small 
 time and trouble are devoted to the formation of these 
 remarkable dwellings. The individual nests also only attain 
 gradually their full perfection and size, having at first, while 
 the spider is young and small, only the thickness of a crow- 
 quill, but being continually enlarged witli the growth of the 
 spider itself. The door also is increased bit by bit, and 
 thereby sometimes acquires the appearance of an oyster- 
 shell. On close investigation it is found to consist generally 
 of a large number of single layers of silk laid one over 
 the other, with earth between, and which are sometimes 
 as many as twenty or thirty. Sometimes, also, the old and 
 now too small doors are left and new ones made, so that we 
 may come across two or three of different sizes. It is obvi- 
 ously far more convenient and more advantageous for the 
 growing spider to continually enlarge and increase its nest, 
 than to make new nests time after time, for Moggridge has 
 noticed differences of size of from one to sixteen lines of 
 diameter, and the number of transitional nests would therefore 
 have to be very large. Howgreat must be the growth of spiders 
 is seen from an account of F. Pollock (" Ann. and Mag. of 
 Nat. Hist." for June, 1865), wherein a female Ejmra or 
 wheel-spider, after a lapse of eight months and ten or more 
 changes of skin, was 2,700 times as heavy as at her birth. 
 
 The most common of the described forms of nests is that 
 of the simple non-ramified single door cork nest. There are 
 six different species, belonging to at least three genera,
 
 THE SPIDERS. 333- 
 
 which make this kind of nest, whereas the other more com- 
 plicated forms are in each case only built by a single species. 
 Three of the accurately known species of the Temtelarice, 
 or earth spiders (Atypus picem, A. Blackwallii and Nemesia 
 cellicola), build the simplest kind, the silken-lined tunnel 
 without any covering at the mouth. As, however, Professor 
 Ausserer, in a monograph on the earth spiders, has reckoned 
 up no less than 215 species, a very wide field here remains 
 open for discovery, and it is most highly probable that there 
 are still many among them which build nests of the single 
 door cork or of some other type. 
 
 Moggridge has seen Australian spiders' trap-doors of the 
 type of from one to two inches in diameter, and considers 
 that this type is spread over almost all the world, whereas 
 his other types have only yet been found in certain limited 
 spots. He adds, indeed, that this latter fact may change 
 with time, but does not think that so wide a diffusion of 
 them as of the simpler type will ever be sho\vn. Let this 
 be as it may, the architecture of the cylinder-building 
 spiders shows a series of gradations and transitions from 
 imperfection to greater perfection, as would be expected 
 from the universal principles of the descent and develop- 
 ment theory, and as is incompatible with the once for all 
 determined rules or forms of behavior and building-tendency 
 laid down for animals, according to the opinion of the 
 instinct philosophers. 
 
 That the number of these transitions through the 
 described forms is not yet nearly exhausted, is not only a 
 supposition, but is actually proved by the issue of the 
 additions found published by Mr. Moggridge in the form of 
 a supplement or appendix, the year after the appearance of 
 his interesting work. We learn therein of no less than 
 three or four more new types of trap-door nests, hitherto 
 unknown in Europe, so that the whole number of these 
 types, apart from the still very imperfectly known but also 
 very noteworthy Atypus species, mounts to six or seven. 
 This variety of forms is much conditioned by the differences 
 of the species building alike, for, as already said, the 
 same species often build very different nests, while the same 
 sort of nests belongs to the most different species, but 
 depends far more, as might naturally be expected, on the 
 variety of outside circumstances and life conditions. In
 
 -334 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 California the nests are made shallow and seldom exceed 
 three inches in length, although the spiders that build them 
 are very large and are also much dreaded owing to their 
 poisonous bite. They leave their nest during the day, but 
 slip back again at the slightest sign of danger. Their most 
 dreaded foe is a large species of wasp, living in California. 
 But little Hymenopterce, which lay their eggs among those 
 of the spider, are also dangerous to it or at least to its 
 young, and it is therefore easy to see how useful and even 
 necessary it is to the spider to have a strong and well- 
 fitting door against these as well as against larger foes. 
 
 Several nests which Moggridge received from Palestine 
 were very short, and had the greatest resemblance to those 
 of the Cteniza Moc/gridgii of Mentone. 
 
 Near Bordeaux Moggridge found a number of non- 
 ramified nests, which had not cork but oblate doors, yet 
 nevertheless had no second door in the interior of the 
 cylinder. The secondary cylinder here, turning away at a 
 sharp angle from the main one, ran almost to the surface of 
 the ground, where they are closed with earth and* web in a 
 way which is easy to penetrate in case of need. This plan 
 appeared to yield the same advantage as the cork nests 
 in their heavy door. Perhaps, as Moggridge suggests, 
 with great probability, the simpler nest forms belong 
 generally more to the colder, the more complex to the hotter 
 climates. 
 
 Moggridge found near Hyeres, in France, a ramified nest 
 with double doors, the second or subterranean door^pf which 
 is constructed in a quite peculiar way, with strong wedge- 
 shaped projections on both sides and with a long flap. It 
 lies tolerably high above, shuts very firmly and, when the 
 outer door is open, is pressed into the main cylinder 
 with great force from above and from the side tunnel. 
 
 Moggridge afterwards discovered in the already described 
 ramified and double-doored nest with one oblate door, a 
 further and remarkable complication which he had at first 
 overlooked. This nest is the work of the Nemesia Manderst- 
 Jernos, and in addition to the upward-tending possesses also 
 a side cylinder or side passage, so that this complication 
 places the nest at the head of all, and proves its architect to 
 be the most distinguished or cleverest among the tunnel- 
 making earth-spiders. The most remarkable thing, how-
 
 THE SPIDERS. 335 
 
 ever, about this arrangement is that any enemy penetrating 
 into the nest is most completely deceived, for when the subter- 
 ranean door is so situated that it shuts off the main passage, 
 the invader in pressing onwards is not in the latter but in 
 -the side cylinder, and as he discovers nothing here, but 
 imagines himself to be in the main cylinder, he must retire 
 with all his work for .nothing. 
 
 But that which complicates everything to a specially high 
 degree is the circumstance that this side tunnel, as a rule, is 
 only found in the nests of the younger spiders, while in the 
 older ones it is generally stopped up with earth and rubbish, 
 and is, therefore, easily overlooked in investigating the nest, 
 or else is not regarded as being present. This curious state 
 of affairs is explained either by the fact that the side cylinder- 
 is intended as a protection against an enemy which the older 
 and stronger spiders have no need to fear, or that the older 
 spiders neglect this precaution when the time is come that 
 they lay no more eggs and, therefore, no longer need any 
 special protection for them. As Moggridge, further, found 
 many remains of slain insects in the doubtful cylinder of 
 old nests, it is also possible that it is intended to serve as 
 a place of deposit for these remnants. 
 
 The nests of X. 3fanderstjern.ce, for the rest, exactly 
 resemble those which Moggridge investigated at Mentone 
 and described. 
 
 To show, lastly, how various are the transitional forms and 
 gradations so important in deciding upon the gradual origin 
 of the forms of nests, Moggridge also alludes to the similar 
 buildings made by other genera of spiders. Lycosa narbo- 
 nensis, a spider of Southern France much resembling the 
 Apuleian tarantula, and belonging to the family of the 
 wolf spiders, makes cylindrical holes in the earth, about 
 one inch wide and three or four inches deep, in a perpen- 
 dicular direction ; when they have attained this depth they 
 orun further horizontally, and end in a three-cornered room, 
 from one to two inches broad, the floor of which is covered 
 with the remnants of dead insects. The whole nest is lined 
 within with a thick silken material, and has at it.s opening 
 closed by no door an above ground chimney-shaped exten- 
 sion, made of leaves, needles, moss, wood, etc., woven together 
 with spider threads. These chimneys show various differ- 
 ences in their manner of building, and are intended chiefly,
 
 336 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 according to Moggridge, to prevent the sand blown about 
 by the violent sea-winds from penetrating into the nests. 
 During winter the opening is wholly and continuously woven 
 over, and it is very well possible, or probable, that the process 
 of reopening such a warm covering in the spring, after this 
 opening was three quarters completed and was large enough 
 to let the spider pass out, may have long ago awaked in the 
 brain of some species of spider the idea of making a permanent 
 and movable door. But from this to the practical construc- 
 tion of so perfect a door as we have learned to know, and 
 even to the building of the exceedingly complicated nest of 
 the JV. Manderstjernce, through all the gradations which we 
 already know, and which doubtless exist in far greater 
 number, is no great or impossible step ; and the truth of 
 the old Linnrean maxim, Natura non facit saltum (Nature 
 takes no leaps), is here again proved in the most striking 
 manner in favor of the theory of evolution. As the animal 
 in common with the whole organised world is physically 
 developed, transformed and improved, so it is also developed 
 psychically to that height whereto the nature of its 'organisa- 
 tion and life conditions enable it to reach: it is only the 
 extreme shortness of our experience which does not distinctly 
 prove this to us, and allows us to think that all is standing 
 still, just as on account of its vast distance the heaven of 
 the fixed stars is to us a picture of an eternal remaining 
 rest, while, in reality, all is movement and change there. 
 So can the intellectual and physical life of animals now 
 only be rightly understood to-day by those who seek and 
 find the key of the knowledge of its existence in the 
 present in the many millions of years reckoned as its past, 
 and thereby utilise as ladders the vast mass of transitions 
 and gradations present also to-day. He who does not know 
 or does not understand this key for the solution of the great 
 enigma, he stands to put it somewhat drastically with 
 regard to this question, as the ox on the mountain, and can 
 only arrive at the absurd opinion, despising all facts, which 
 was maintained, for example, by Professor John Huber, of 
 Miinchen, in his articles on scientific questions of the day 
 (Supplement of the Allgemeinen Zeitnng of July 14th, 1874), 
 where he alleged that animals make no progress, that they 
 discover nothing, that they build their nests as at first, that 
 they indeed gain experience, but cannot impart their know-
 
 THE SPIDERS. 337 
 
 ledge to their companions and their successors, and cannot 
 utilise it themselves ; or by Professor Carus, sen., who rose 
 in his "Comparative Psychology" (1.86G, p. 191) to the 
 astounding assertion : " The spider's web is woven by the 
 spider involuntarily, and involuntarily are the insects caught 
 therein used as food." Has Herr Carus, who considers him- 
 self capable of writing, a Comparative Pyschology or Mental 
 Science, never heard that spiders, like almost all animals, 
 use very admirable discrimination in the choice of their 
 food, although, also like all other animals and like man, 
 they are subject to occasional error? Mr. Moggridge, on 
 one occasion of watching the trap-door spiders at night, 
 brought an accidentally-captured beetle (Chrysomela Banksii) 
 into the immediate neighborhood of a half-open trap-door, 
 out of the crack of which lay the fore-legs of the inhabitant. 
 The door immediately flew open, the spider darted on the 
 beetle, and drew it into its house, whereupon the door shut 
 close. But after a few seconds, remarkable to say, the 
 door suddenly opened again, and the beetle came alive and 
 unhurt into sight i.e., the spider threw him out again. 
 Clearly, the beetle, which was far too small and weak to 
 make any important, resistance, had either some peculiarity 
 which made it unpleasant to the spider, or was unfitted for 
 food, and was therefore let go uninjured. A few minutes 
 afterwards Moggridge brought a woodlouse (0/riscus) to the 
 door of the spider, and saw this pulled in, and not let out 
 again. What becomes, in such cases, of the Carusian 
 theory of the involuntarily eaten spider's food ? 
 
 But the ne phi* ultra of this melancholy kind of wisdom 
 is manifested by Professor Fr. Korner (" Instinct and Free 
 Will," 1874), who starts from the opinion that " all animals of 
 the same species do all the same things and in the same way 
 since thousands of years ago," and explains the spider's web 
 in the following intellectual fashion: "The spider must 
 make a web, because the stored up spinning material in its 
 body hurts it." A man, indeed, like Herr Korner who 
 answers the question, asked by himself, why the swallow 
 should build a mud nest, by saying " Because it is a house- 
 swallow;" or gives as explanation of the beaver-dam that 
 '" the beaver must build thus because it is in some measure 
 in his feet ; " or maintains as to the dog that he " knows 
 nothing of duty and conscience, of truth and devotion ; " or
 
 338 THE SPIDERS. 
 
 has nothing better to say of a human child than that it is- 
 " only a wax-like piece of flesh ; " such a man ought not to- 
 expect anyone to trouble himself seriously with contradicting 
 his printed folly. 
 
 Pie who objects to the application of the evolution theory 
 to the above-mentioned facts on the ground that it is not 
 clear why, in spite of such long past ages, many imperfect 
 and as it were primitive forms of the nests of the earth- 
 working spiders should exist side by side with the more- 
 perfect, forgets that it is not different with us men, although 
 we are wont to claim progress as a human privilege, and 1 
 although the antiquity of the human race on the earth must 
 be reckoned in all pi'obability as of hundreds of thousands of 
 years : not only is the number of cave-dwellings and huts of 
 the most primitive kind in which men live, far in excess of 
 that of the houses and palaces of civilised nations ; but also the- 
 comparative distance between them appears far more striking 
 than that which we have found between the abodes of trap- 
 door spiders. 
 
 Finally, before leaving the interesting spidef-folk, we- 
 may remember a trap-door spider discovered by Dr. Living- 
 stone, the famous African traveller, near the Delilo Lake iii 
 South Africa. " A large reddish spider (Myyale,)" says the- 
 discoverer, (" Pop. Accounts of Travels in South Africa,"" 
 ch. xvii., p. 221,) " which the natives call Scliili, is seen. 
 running about here with great nimbleness. Its nest is- 
 closed in the most ingenious manner with a lid or door, 
 about the size of a shilling, hanging from a hinge. The- 
 inner surface of this door is covered with a pure white silken 
 paper-like material, while the outside looks exactly like the 
 surrounding surface of the ground, so that when the door is 
 shut it is impossible to find the nest. The hole can therefore- 
 only be seen when the inhabitant has gone out and has left 
 the door open behind it."
 
 THE BEETLES.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BEETLE INTELLECT. 
 
 FROM the spiders, which depart so far in their bodily 
 organisation from the insect type proper, that they are 
 set aside in a special class of the articulate animals 
 under the name of Arachnida, let us turn back to a group 
 which represents this type in its highest perfection or de- 
 velopment the universally known, and almost inconceivably 
 various in form, beetles or Coleopterce. If only the represen- 
 tatives of different species in the countless collections of 
 this specially beloved object of collectors were reckoned up, 
 they would mount to far over a hundred thousand ; and 
 were we to judge by the interest which these creatures 
 exercise over so many people we should have to expect 
 something very special from them for the object of this 
 work. But in reality, both as to their mechanical ability 
 and as to their other intellectual capacities, they stand far, 
 far behind the hitherto studied representatives of the arti- 
 culate animals, although a more exact observation of their 
 habits and action than we as yet possess would here also, 
 without doubt, bring to light in some species and genera 
 a perhaps hitherto not suspected intellectual capacity. 
 Debey maintains (" Beitrage zur Lebens und Entwicklungs 
 Geschichte der Riisselkttfer aus der Zunft der Attelabiden^ 
 Bonn, 1846, and quoted by Perty, loc. cit., p. 300,) that the 
 so-called funnel-spinner, Khynchites betulce, possesses the high- 
 est instinct among beetles, and that it with other Attelabides 
 should be placed near, if not above, the honey-bee and the 
 ant. In general, however, such a judgment is doubtless in- 
 applicable to the great order of the beetles, or beetle-like 
 insects. Their helplessness, their clumsy ways, their manner 
 of flight and work, their want of ordered social life, and 
 similar facts, point to the lower intellectual grade which they 
 take among their allies, and they may be described as among
 
 342 THE BEETLES. 
 
 insects what porters are among men. But as individuals are 
 found among porters whose intelligence raises them far above 
 the crowd of their colleagues, so among beetles are found 
 some proofs of a very far-reaching reasoning or reflective 
 power. The most well-known by its habits is the burying- 
 beetle (Necrophorus), which also manifests a small com- 
 mencement of social life, in that several of them unite 
 together to bury under the ground as food and shelter for 
 their young some dead animal, such as a mouse, a toad, a 
 mole, a bird, etc. The burial is performed because the 
 corpse, if left above-ground, would either dry up, or grow 
 rotten, or be eaten by other animals. In all these cases the 
 young would perish, whereas the dead body lying in the earth 
 and withdrawn from the outer air, lasts verv well. The 
 burying-beetles go to work in a very well-considered 
 fashion, for they scrape away the earth lying under 
 the body so that it sinks of itself deeper and deeper. When 
 it is deep enough down, it is covered over from above. If 
 the situation is stony, the beetles with united forces and 
 great efforts drag the corpse to some place more Suitable for 
 burying. They work so diligently that a mouse, for instance, 
 is buried within three hours. But they often work on for 
 days, so as to bury the body as deeply as possible. From 
 large carcases, such as those of horses, sheep, etc., they only 
 bury pieces as large as they can manage. 
 
 Gleditsch, to whom botany and farming owe so much, 
 put four Necrophori, with their young, into a glass vessel 
 filled with earth, and found that these insects, in a space of 
 fifty days, buried no less than four frogs, three small birds, 
 two grasshoppers, and a mole, as well as the entrails of a 
 fish and two pieces of ox-lung. He saw a single beetle, 
 which he left without help, bury a dead body in the earth 
 by unceasing efforts and great sense or skill. 
 
 An observer, to try the acuteness of this creature, tied a 
 dead mouse on a cross of wood, which would hold the mouse 
 up after the burrowing beneath it. But when the beetles 
 saw that after they had burrowed, the mouse did not fall into 
 the hole, they undermined the wood as well, until the body 
 fell in. 
 
 Thc-y went yet more sensibly to work when a friend of 
 Gleditsch fastened a dead toad, which he wanted to dry, on a 
 stick, and put the stick in the ground. The beetles were
 
 THE BEETLES. 343 
 
 attracted by the smell, at once recognised the difficulty of 
 the situation, and undermined the little post until it fell 
 over, whereupon they buried toad and stick. Dead animals 
 hung on a stick by means of a thread, so that they rest on 
 the ground but cannot sink in, are obtained by the Necro- 
 phori by undermining the hindering stick. 
 
 The Xecrophori, like the greater number of their beetle 
 allies, possess a very well-developed stridulating, or rasping 
 apparatus, by means of which they emit a very broken, 
 jarring note, which, perhaps apart from other purposes 
 serves to call them together for the performance of their 
 common work. They can also, like all insects, Tinderstand 
 and communicate with each other by means of their antennas. 
 The same is, of course, true of beetles without exception, 
 and there can be no doubt that they use their often very 
 various and even curiously made antenna?, just as do bees 
 and ants, for mutual comprehension, even though the com- 
 munications which they have to make to each other are of a 
 far simpler nature than Avith the animals named. Herr 
 George Goelitz writes as follows to the author from Marys- 
 ville, Marshall County, Kansas (North America), under date 
 Dec. 25, 1875 : " Last summer, in the month of July, I 
 was one day in my field, and found there a mound of fresh 
 earth like a nick-hill, on Avhich a striped black and red 
 beetle, Avith long legs, and about the size of a hornet, was 
 busy taking aAvay the earth from a hole that led like a pit 
 into the mound, and levelling the place. After I had 
 Avatched this beetle for some time, I noticed a second beetle 
 of the same kind, Avhich brought a little lump of earth from 
 the interior to the opening of the hole, and then disappeared 
 sixain in the mound ; every four or five minutes a pellet 
 came out of the hole, and Avas carried aAvay by the first- 
 named beetle. After I had watched these proceedings for 
 about half-an-hour, the beetle which had been working 
 underground came out and ran to its comrade. Both put 
 their heads together, and clearly held a com-ersation, for 
 immediately aftei-Avards they changed Avork The one which 
 had been Avorking outside Avent into the mound, the other 
 took the outside labor, and all Avent on A'igorously. I watched 
 the affair still for a little longer, and went away AA'ith the 
 notion that these insects could understand each other just 
 like men." Klingelhb'ffer, of Darmstadt (in Urchin, loc.cit., 
 
 7. 2
 
 344 THE BEETLES. 
 
 ix., p. 86), says : " A golden running beetle came to a cock- 
 chafer lying on its back in the garden, intending to eat it, but 
 was unable to master it ; it ran to the next bush, and returned 
 with a friend, whereupon the two overpowered the cock- 
 chafer, and pulled it off to their hiding-place." 
 
 Many other beetles, in addition to those named, have been 
 observed to summon each other for assistance. This has 
 been seen most strikingly exemplified in the famous Scara- 
 basus, or sacred beetle of Egypt (Ateuclius, or Scaralmms 
 sacer), whose remarkable method of propagation seemed so 
 marvellous to the ancients that they dedicated it to the sun, 
 and that the old Egyptians paid it divine honors, and placed 
 it in their temples, hewing it in colossal size out of stone. 
 The Aviser Romans, on the other hand, narrowed down the 
 worship to carrying beetles carved in stone as amulets. 
 Sometimes real beetles were mummified and kept in special 
 vessels. The Ateuclius has the remarkable habit of making 
 pellets of dung, one or two inches big, in which it places its 
 future young, and then rolls them in front of it until they 
 are round and firm, and have arrived at the 'spot where 
 it wishes to bury them. This turning and rolling of its 
 egg-enclosing dung-pellets was taken by the ancients as a 
 symbol of the movement of the earth, and hence their reve- 
 rence ! Cow-dung is preferred by the Ateuchus for its 
 object before any other, but, in default of this, it will 
 use that of sheep or goats. The work itself is very care- 
 fully performed, and at every couple of steps it halts, to see 
 if the pellet is firm enough. In order to find the place 
 where it may most suitably be buried, the Ateuchus has 
 often a long way to go, in which case one mate generally 
 pulls while the other shoves or pushes. If it finds any 
 roughness of ground on the way, it lifts up the pellet, which 
 sometimes attains the size of a small apple, on its broad, 
 strong head, as with a lever. Sometimes it chances that 
 the pellet falls into a hole, or some uuevenness in the ground, 
 where the beetle does not want it, and out of which it is 
 unable to lift it either alone or with the help of its mate. 
 The beetle then suddenly leaves its ball, spreads its 
 wings, and rises into the air. If the observer is patient 
 enough to see the matter out, he will see the fugitive return 
 after awhile, accompanied by two, three, four, or five com- 
 rades, which now set to work together, and set the pellet
 
 THE BEETLES. 345 
 
 rolling again. It thus happens that, on stony ground, several 
 beetles are not seldom seen busied with a single ball. At 
 last, arrived at a suitable spot, a hole is dug in the ground 
 with the strong, toothed fore-feet, which can work like a 
 digger's spade, the pellet is dropped in and the earth 
 shovelled over. 
 
 According to M. P. de la Brulerie (A. Murray, " Journ. 
 of Travels," vol. I., "186t5) the male Ateuchus uses his 
 jarring rasp or stridulating note to encourage the female when 
 making the dung-pellet for the future young, as well as 
 from uneasiness when she is away. 
 
 The Scaraba.'i are specially eager after freshly fallen 
 dung, because, mixed with earth, it best serves their 
 purpose. As a rule they leave the pellet to dry a little 
 in the sun before they begin to roll it. 
 
 The 0/icideres amputator, a species of house-beetle (Lamia) 
 living in the tropics, deserves notice, which gnaws round the 
 bark and alburnum of young twigs, and thereby causes their 
 death or fall. M. Foullet, director of the hothouses of the 
 Natural History Museum in Paris, was in a house near 
 Rio Janeiro and heard every night the rustle of the falling 
 twigs of a tree, the Acacia Lebbtck. These twigs seemed to 
 be sawn off all round, and as only their inner part remained 
 they fell either of their own accord or in consequence of the 
 wind. On whom was the guilt to be laid? Without doubt 
 it was the negroes of the property who wanted to play their 
 master a trick. But the traveller soon noticed that a 
 Lam! <i was often on the cut twig, and that it must be the 
 evil doer. One of tlie twigs was investigated, and was found 
 filled with the living larvaj and pupa? of the Oncideres. The 
 object of the destroyer was now clear ; it wanted, by cutting 
 through the alburnum, to prevent its larvre from being 
 drowned or injured by an overflow of sap ! 
 
 A not less refined care for the bringing up of its brood is 
 shown by many of the already named weevils, or Khymhophorth 
 The Rhynchites aiiratiis, belonging to the gi'oup of so-called 
 fruit-piercers, seeks the sunny side of the apple, raises a bit 
 of the peel, lays an egg in the little hole it hollows out, and 
 then lays down the peel again so carefully that the place can 
 scarcely be seen. The hatched larva does not live entirely 
 on the pulp of the apple, but bores through it, gets into the 
 core, eats the pips, works right through the apple, lets itself
 
 346 THE BEETLES. 
 
 fall and turns into a pupa in the ground. The EhyncJiites 
 letula 1 , described by Debey, cuts the leaves of the birch in 
 a very artistic manner from the edge inwards, so as to be 
 able to roll up the edges and make a funnel in which to lay 
 its egg. As it partly gnaws through the middle bundle of the 
 leaf at the same time, the latter gradually dries up, and 
 when the larva is hatched it finds food already prepared for 
 it in the dry substance of the leaf. When the withered leaf at 
 last falls off it turns into a pupa in the ground. The R/njuch/'tes 
 bettdeti, which does great mischief in the vineyards of the 
 Rhein and the Moselle, rolls up several of the top leaves of 
 a twig in the most ingenious way after it has pierced or 
 notched either the stem or themselves, so as to have caused 
 the partial withering of the leaves, making them pliable 
 into the form of a cigar, smearing their edges with a sticky 
 secretion, and smoothing the roll with its abdomen. Ac- 
 cording to Nordlinger's observations the little artist 
 performs his difficult task with wonderful reflexion and 
 appreciation of each special situation, as well as with 
 astonishing skill, strength, and patience. Further, among 
 the Attelabi, only the females possess this thoughtful 
 industry, inherited from generation to generation, and the 
 intellectual superiority of the female sex over the male 
 stands out again here, as among so many other, and indeed 
 most, insects. 
 
 The A.ttelabus curculior.oides treats the leaves of the oak, 
 and the Apoderus coryli those of the hazel, just as the 
 Ehynchites betulti' does those of the birch. 
 
 Very quarrelsome beetles are the allied and predacious Cicin- 
 delce, belonging to the family of the running-beetles, which 
 Linna?us has justly named the tigers among insects (Tiff rides 
 insectoruiii). They are all strong and swift robbers, hunting 
 living insects and falling with tigerish blood-thirstiness upon 
 their victims, striking them with their sharp-pointed upper 
 jaws, tearing them in pieces, and swallowing them piece by 
 piece. In spring the graceful active Cicindela campestris 
 or field Cicindela may be seen in the sunshine on all sandy 
 places, with its emerald green wings and copper-red spots 
 glittering like fire in the sun. Scarcely an insect can with- 
 stand its attack, while it has itself little or nothing to fear 
 with its hard body covering. The larva? of the Cicindelce have 
 all the voracity of their parents, and they manage to satisfy
 
 THE BEETLES. 347 
 
 it in a very ingenious fashion without danger to their soft 
 bodies. They dig chimney-shaped pits in the ground willi 
 their strong pointed-feet, in and out of which they climb by 
 alternate motions of tHeir bodies, like a sweep in a chimney. 
 Holding their heads quietly at the entrance of their hole 
 and to a certain extent stopping it up thereby, they wait 
 with th'eless patience for insects running over. As soon as 
 one of these treads oil the dangerous spot the larva pulls its 
 head back quickly and the insect falls into the hole and 
 becomes the prey of the robber. This game is continually 
 repeated. When the larva is ready to spin its cocoon, it 
 simply walls in the entrance of its hole. 
 
 If the field Cicindela is put with other insects which serve 
 it as food, as house-flies, worms, caterpillars, other beetles, 
 etc., it tries first of all to sever the head from the body of 
 its victim, or to tear and bite off wings and legs, so that it 
 cannot escape. It then cuts from within outwards, so that 
 only the empty shell remains. The murderer often tears 
 open the abdomen of its prey, and devours the entrails while 
 the latter is still alive and trying to escape. Caterpillars, 
 worms, or soft larvae are also gnawed from the abdomen 
 upwards, and slowly eaten up from behind forwards while 
 still alive. 
 
 The predacious and greedy Staphylinus species also, which 
 show much resemblance in their life-habits with the running- 
 beetles, act in the same way as the Cicindela;. Dr. Nagel, 
 of Schmolle, watched the fight of Stajihylinus maxillosus with 
 the larva of a Tenebrio molitor, the so-called meal-worm. 
 At first the grasp of the beetle slid off from the hard, 
 smooth, chitinous somites of the worm. At last, however, 
 it caught the worm so tightly by the neck that it could not get 
 free, spite of all twistings and turnings. They both wrestled 
 together like two dogs, which seize each other by the fore- 
 feet and rise on their hind-legs. At last they fell, and the 
 head of the worm was torn from the convulsively twisting 
 body. The beetle now devoured the worm, with great 
 anatomical skill twisting off one somite after another from 
 the soft abdominal wall, so as to be able to get at the 
 inside. In other cases the beetle at once gnawed at the 
 abdominal wall, and began thence its work of destruction. 
 
 An artificially-induced fight between a Cicindela and a 
 running-beetle (Caralus) had no result, both creatures
 
 348 THE BEETLES. 
 
 seeming afraid, and letting go as soon as they seized each 
 other. More severe are the battles waged between the 
 rival beetles for the possession of a female, which Darwin 
 (" Descent of Man," p. 21MJ) has described in detail. 
 
 Nagel put four Feromce (a species of common running- 
 beetle) with a Staphyliuus niger. The Staphylinus seized one 
 of them between head and thorax, and a furious struggle 
 took place, the three others looking on quietly for awhile. 
 At last, however, they ran to the wrestlers and attempted 
 intervention, but speedily took to flight when they received a 
 push from the latter. At last one of the Feroiriai took 
 courage, and bit the abdomen of the Staphyliuus. It, how- 
 ever, did cot allow itself to be diverted, but finished its 
 murderous work. This so terrified the three other beetles 
 that they promptly crept into the ground. Could the intel- 
 lectual struggle between fear of an overwhelming foe and 
 the desire to help a comrade in distress have happened other- 
 wise among men? 
 
 A (striking example of the sharpness of a beetle is related 
 by G. Berkeley ("Life and' Recollections," vol. II.,p. 356), 
 without the species of beetle being given. While out 
 walking he saw a beetle pulling along something heavy. 
 Kneeling down, he observed that it was the body of a large, 
 brown, apparently dead spider, and that the beetle was 
 more than half -an -inch long, resembling a large fly 
 in appearance, of a dark color, with shining yellow or 
 red sides. The observer took up the beetle on the end of 
 his stick, to look at it more closely, but it fell down off the 
 stick and lost its prey, or let it fall. Both reached the 
 ground about a foot apart. But the beetle at once began to 
 look for its prize, apparently being guided by its scent. 
 When it again found the spider, it approached it carefully, 
 avoiding its head, and touched its side with one of its fore- 
 feet, so as to assure itself that the spider was really dead. 
 On feeling quite convinced, it seized its prey again and ran 
 on. A few steps further it laid it down, however, and went 
 on without it. The observer followed on his hands and 
 knees, and saw it leave the sandy path and climb up on 
 some heather. It here rested for a few mitmtes, whereupon 
 it earned the spider up to the top of the heather and hung 
 it up between the twigs, of which it had clearly known 
 beforehand that they would do to take and keep its game.
 
 THE BEETLES. 349 
 
 When this was done, it went down again, and disappeared 
 between the roots of the heather, as though seeking new 
 prey. The observer now examined the twig, and convinced 
 himself that the beetle had not only chosen the most suitable 
 twig for hanging up its food, but had also managed the sus- 
 pension in the most suitable way. For a sharp shake of the 
 twig did not make Jhe spider fall down. " Who will now," 
 adds Mr. Berkeley, " deny to the brain of the insect the 
 power of reflexion or of judgment ? The beetle thought that 
 if it did not hang up its prey, it might fall into the hands 
 of other hunters, and therefore took all possible pains to find 
 out the best store-room for it."
 
 THE ANT-LION. 
 
 iniXALLY, the famous ant-lion must be remembered 
 Jt; (Myrmecoleon), which, although not belonging to the 
 beetles, has always attracted the attention of lovers of nature 
 by its remarkable way of hunting. It is the larva of an insect 
 belonging to the order Neuroptera, the common Myrmeleon 
 (Myrmeleon formicariuni), and is therefore nearly allied to 
 the Termites. It obtains its food in the following ingenious 
 way, which vividly reminds iis of the manners of loan-office 
 vampires among men. For both live on harmless unsus- 
 pecting victims, whom chance throws into their jaws by the 
 help of a trap set in most unsuspected and therefore most 
 dangerous fashion. In dry sandy places the ant-lion makes 
 its well-known funnel-shaped pits, first making a circle in 
 the sand which marks the circumference of its hole, and 
 then makes the hole itself by shovelling out the sand. This 
 is done in the following fashion : it loads the sand on its 
 flat head, using one fore-foot as a shovel, and then jerks it 
 so forcibly out of the circle that it flies several inches away. 
 During this process it always goes backwards, until it comes 
 again to the place whence it started. It then makes a new 
 circle, and hollows out a new pit in similar fashion, until it 
 gradually comes to the centre of the funnel. But in order not 
 to tire out one leg too much with continual work, it draws- 
 alternate circles in opposite directions and uses the other 
 foot. If it comes across little stones or too coarse grains of 
 sand, it throws them over the edge of the hole. But if the 
 stone is too large to treat thus, it gets it on its back very 
 cleverly, climbs slowly and carefully up the side and throws 
 it outside the pit. It is sometimes seen thus to move stones 
 four times as heavy as itself. If the stone be round, this 
 proceeding is complicated by no light difficulties, and it 
 often rolls down again. But it patiently picks it up again,, 
 and tries to carry it away, sensibly using the path made by 
 the fallen stone. If the attempt fails, however, time after
 
 THE ANT-LION. 351 
 
 time, the creature gives up its Sisyphus-task, and makes 
 another funnel. 
 
 "When the pit is complete, the sly vampire hides itself 
 in the sand at the bottom, so that none of it is to be seen, 
 and only the open points of its long strong jaws emerge. 
 As soon as a little insect comes to the edge of the pit, the 
 soft sand shifts under its feet and it falls in, to be seized in 
 the jaws of the hunter. The victim is sucked until nothing 
 remains but its husk, which is then flung over the edge of 
 the hole. Among men the sucked-out husk is often left 
 alive, but not seldom shoots itself to death. 
 
 The unfortunate insect, as soon as ft feels the ground 
 giving way under its feet, naturally tries to escape by 
 climbing up the sides of the pit. But the ant-lion knows 
 how to make these efforts useless, by throwing a rain of 
 sand over the creature with its broad head, which catches 
 it in rolling down again and brings it within reach of the 
 robber. It is generally ants which fall victims to it in 
 this way. Hence its name. 
 
 When all is over, the robber comes out from its hiding- 
 place, and sets in order again any places that may have 
 been injured, and then lurks in wait for fresh prey. Some- 
 times it is deceived, and lets itself be induced to throw up 
 its sand-rain as often as is wished, if by aid of a stalk or 
 little stick some tiny lumps of sand are pushed down and 
 let to fall into the centre of its funnel. Human ant-lions, 
 too, are sometimes tricked !
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 THERE are few points in the foregoing book as to which 
 any words of mine arc needed. The differences be- 
 tween the original and the translation are very slight. I 
 have omitted a few lines from the preface to the third 
 edition, referring merely to changes which do not touch the 
 English reader. I have also divided the book into Parts 
 and Chapters instead of printing it continuously, as in the 
 German, from beginning to cud without break. I have in 
 a few cases added the date of the edition of the English 
 books quoted, and have corrected the page reference when 
 that of the edition used was not the same as that quoted 
 from by Dr. Buchner. In most cases of quotations from 
 English books, I have taken them directly from the 
 originals, instead of retranslating. Here and there I have 
 added a note, marking it by placing it between square 
 brackets and signing it "Tn." A few points touching 
 which I was doubtful have been referred to Dr. Buchner, 
 so as to insure perfect accuracy, and my thanks are due 
 to the great German author for his ready and ever-kindly 
 assistance. I also owe thanks and recognition to my friend 
 Dr. Edward Aveling for reading over a great part of the 
 proofs. 
 
 ANNIE BBS ANT. 
 Jam/dry 13//>, 1881.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 135. 
 
 PAOKS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 HISTORICAL REVIEW ... 1 10 
 
 Opinions on " instinct " of Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, 
 Aristotle, Pliny, Virgil, Plutarch, Galen, Celsus, Des- 
 cartes, Csesalpinius, Leibnitz, Bajer, Reclam, Con- 
 dillac, Buffon, Bonnet, Bonjeant, La Fontaine, Leroy, 
 Kant, Herder, Agassiz, Huxley Voice Organs of 
 Man and Animals. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 INTELLIGENCE AND "INSTINCT" 1122 
 
 Instancesof Intelligence Blunders of Animals Changes 
 of Food " Instinct " Changes of Building " Instinct " 
 in Beavers, Sables, Birds, Bees, Oriole, Bittern, Palm- 
 swift, Puffin. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 " INSTINCT" (continued) 23 35 
 
 " Instinct " of Chickens, Ducklings, Goslings, Turtles 
 Smell of Insects Dams of Beavers " Instinct " in 
 Man Animal Psychology. 
 
 ANTS AND ANT LIFE, 39184. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 39 53 
 
 Place of Ants in 'Nature Resemblance between Ants 
 and Men Variety of Character Courage Size and 
 Construction of Brain Effect of Injuries to Brain 
 Use of Antennae Love of Cleanliness Anatomy.
 
 356 INDEX. 
 
 PA.UI. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ANTS IN HISTORY ">4 70 
 
 Arabia Jewish Scriptures Misbna Hesiod Horace 
 Virgil Plautus Pliny JElianus Alclrovandus 
 La Fontaine Plutarch The Ant Republic Infe- 
 riority of Males and Fertile Females Wedding Flight 
 Queens Care of Young Larv<%> Xymph,-i- 
 Young Ants Their Education Equality of Ants 
 Working Queens. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 ANT ARCHITECTURE 71 89 
 
 The Ant-heap Huber's Description of a Nest Method 
 of Building Variety and Adaptation to Circum- 
 stances Nests in Trees Nests of Harvesting Ants 
 Intelligence under Difficulties .Doors, Sentries, and 
 Methods of Defence of Nests Changes of Dwelling 
 Ants in New South Wales. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ROAD-MAKING , 90101 
 
 Covered Ways De'pots Colonies of many Nests Ant- 
 town in Pennsylvania Working at Night Marching 
 in Africa Sa-ubas in South America Umbrella Ants 
 in Central America Cutting Ants Tunnels of Sa- 
 ubas Plundering Stores. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 HARVESTING A NTS 102115 
 
 Gathering Provisions Rubbish Heaps Preventing 
 Germination of Corn Plundering Mistakes No\\- 
 Indian Ants Mexican Agricultural Ants. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 CATTLE AND MILKING 110127 
 
 Aphides : Shutting them up Milking them Crossing 
 birdlime, etc., to get at them Forming a colony 
 J/ i/rmecophila Honey Ants. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE 128 135. 
 
 Intelligence in reaching Stores of Food Fine Scent 
 Communication by Antenna; Ants in Ornotepe with 
 Dead Birds In a Monastery with Sugar.
 
 INDEX. 357 
 
 PARES. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 SLAVERY 136152 
 
 Mildness of Slavery among Auts Amazons and their 
 Slaves Slave Hunts Attacks on Nests of Slave 
 Species Carrying off of Slave Pupae Civil War. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 SLAVERY (continued') 153 1G3 
 
 Sanguine Ants Intelligence in Battle Slave Hunts 
 Besieging a Nest Slave Species Care of Sick 
 Gymnastic Sports. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 FRIENDSHIP AND ENMITIES 164 169 
 
 Mutual Feeding Experiments with Flasks Hostile 
 Ants meeting Wounded and Dead Meeting after 
 separation. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 WARS AND BATTLES 170 184 
 
 Battles between different Species Between the same 
 Species Alliances Various Methods of Fighting 
 Pheidoles Soldiers Eciton or Driver Ant Contrast 
 between Workers and Soldiers. 
 
 THE TERMITES OR WHITE ANTS, 185207. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 TKUMITI.S AT HOME 187198 
 
 Largo Buildings Interior of Nest Defence by the 
 Soldiers Repairs by the Workers Covered Roads 
 Soldiers and Workers Queen Wedding Flight. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 TERMITES ABROAD 199207 
 
 Destructiveness Introduction into Europe Bates's 
 Account of their Life and Ways. 
 
 2 A
 
 So 8 
 
 THE BEE NATION, 209289. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 ROYALTY 211227 
 
 The Queen Bee Drones Massacre of the Drones 
 Female Supremacy Struggles between Queens 
 Emergence of Young Queens Development of Royal 
 Larvae Loss of Queen Introduction of a Stranger 
 Queen. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 SWARMING 228241 
 
 Signs of Swarming Swarming Artificial and Natural 
 Settlement in a New Home Killing of Young 
 Queens by Old Wedding Flight Return of the Queen 
 Egg-laying Determination of Nature of Eggs 
 Abdication of Queen. 
 
 CHAPTER XLX. 
 DOMESTIC WOBK 242254 
 
 Work of Younger Bees -Feeding of Larvae Preparation 
 of Honey and Storage thereof Pollen Cleaning the 
 Hive Rebuilding the Cells Change of Building to 
 Suit Circumstances Propolis Cleanliness of Bees 
 Burial of Dead Ventilating Bees Details on Cell 
 Building. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 ACTIVITY ABROAD 255 264 
 
 Gathering Nectar and Pollen Guards Enemies Lan- 
 guage Scent Memory Virgil and Shakspere on 
 Bees. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 MONARCHY, SOCIALISM AND INSTINCT 265 272 
 
 Constitutional Monarchy Communism " Instinct " of 
 Work Robber Bees Bees with Sugar Refineries 
 Living on Humble Bees Artificial Feeding. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 CELL-BUILDING 273283 
 
 Shape of Cell Gradations of Shape Meliponae 
 Hexagons Long Development Queens and Workers 
 Wars Greeks and Bees.
 
 INDEX. 359 
 
 PAGES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 OTHER SPECIES OF BEES 284 289 
 
 Osmia, or Mason Bee Melipona South American Bees 
 Tapestry Bee Rose Bee Carpenter Bee Humble 
 Bee. 
 
 THE WASPS, 291 309. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 GENERAL DETAILS 293301 
 
 Fertile Females Workers Nests Hornets' Nests 
 Intelligence Wasp and Spider Irritability. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 VARIOUS SPECIES OF WASPS 302 309 
 
 Polistes American Wasps Wall or Mason Wasp 
 Sand Wasp Butcher Wasp Bee Eater Ichneu- 
 monidae. 
 
 THE SPIDERS, 311 338. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 GENERAL DETAILS 313 321 
 
 Dislike of Spiders Spiders' Webs Stretching of Webs 
 Cleanliness Love of Music. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 VARIOUS SPECIES OF SPIDERS 322338 
 
 Water Spider Hunting Spider Bird-catching Spider 
 Trap-door Spider Its Nest Moggridge's Investi- 
 gations Various Kinds of Nest Australian Trap- 
 door Spiders Transitional Forms of Nest Evolution 
 and its Opponents. 
 
 THE BEETLES, 339 351. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 BEETLE INTELLECT 341 351 
 
 The Burying Beetle and its Cleverness Power of Com- 
 munication Ateuchus Oncideres Amputator 
 Rhynchophora Cicindela Staphylinus A Beetle's 
 Larder The Ant Lion.
 
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