The Beauties of Nature, and the Wonders of the World We Live InLubbock, John, Sir
Philosophy
The Beauties of Nature, and the Wonders of the World We Live In
Lubbock, John, Sir
Astronomy; Natural history; Physical geography
The existence of such communities as those of Ants or Bees implies, no
doubt, some power of communication, but the amount is still a matter of
doubt. It is well known that if one Bee or Ant discovers a store of
food, others soon find their way to it. This, however, does not prove
much. It makes all the difference whether they are brought or sent. If
they merely accompany on her return a companion who has brought a store
of food, it does not imply much. To test this, therefore, I made
several experiments. For instance, one cold day my Ants were almost all
in their nests. One only was out hunting and about six feet from home. I
took a dead bluebottle fly, pinned it on to a piece of cork, and put it
down just in front of her. She at once tried to carry off the fly, but
to her surprise found it immovable. She tugged and tugged, first one way
and then another for about twenty minutes, and then went straight off to
the nest. During that time not a single Ant had come out; in fact she
was the only Ant of that nest out at the time. She went straight in, but
in a few seconds--less than half a minute,--came out again with no less
than twelve friends, who trooped off with her, and eventually tore up
the dead fly, carrying it off in triumph.
Now the first Ant took nothing home with her; she must therefore somehow
have made her friends understand that she had found some food, and
wanted them to come and help her to secure it. In all such cases,
however, so far as my experience goes, the Ants brought their friends,
and some of my experiments indicated that they are unable to send them.
Certain species of Ants, again, make slaves of others, as Huber first
observed. If a colony of the slave-making Ants is changing the nest, a
matter which is left to the discretion of the slaves, the latter carry
their mistresses to their new home. Again, if I uncovered one of my
nests of the Fuscous Ant (Formica fusca), they all began running about
in search of some place of refuge. If now I covered over one small part
of the nest, after a while some Ant discovered it. In such a case,
however, the brave little insect never remained there, she came out in
search of her friends, and the first one she met she took up in her
jaws, threw over her shoulder (their way of carrying friends), and took
into the covered part; then both came out again, found two more friends
and brought them in, the same manoeuvre being repeated until the whole
community was in a place of safety. This I think says much for their
public spirit, but seems to prove that, in F. fusca at least, the powers
of communication are but limited.
One kind of slave-making Ant has become so completely dependent on their
slaves, that even if provided with food they will die of hunger, unless
there is a slave to put it into their mouth. I found, however, that they
would thrive very well if supplied with a slave for an hour or so once a
week to clean and feed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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