[103] The earliest comprehensive account of the Termites and their industries was by Smeathman in the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_, vol. lxxi., 1781, pp. 139-192. Later they were studied by Lespes: "Recherches sur l'organisation et les moeurs du Termite lucifuge," _Ann. des Sci. Nat._, 4me Serie, t. v., fasc. 4 and 5, Paris, 1856. For a description of the South American Termitarium see also Bates's _Naturalist on the Amazons_ (unabridged edition, 1892), pp. 208-214; and for the African Termites of Victoria Nyanza, a chapter in H. Drummond's _Tropical Africa_, 1888, pp. 123-158; while Forbes has briefly described them in Java, _Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, pp. 73, 74. The Ants of our own lands do not yield to the Termites in this industry, and their dwellings are models of architecture. As they have been more carefully studied we know more exactly how they work, and the considerable sum of intelligence and initiative which they reveal in the accomplishment of their task. At the foot of hedges, on the outskirts of woods, they raise their frail monuments. The species are not equally skilful, and such differences as we have found in other industries may also be found here. In a general manner it was soon found that Ants do not, like Bees, obey a rigid instinct which ordains the line of conduct under every circumstance, and impels each individual to act so that his efforts are naturally combined and harmonised with those of his neighbours in the workshop. One soon perceives when observing an ant-hill that any individual insect follows, when working, a personal idea which it has conceived, and which it realises without troubling itself about the others. Often these latter are executing a quite contradictory plan. It is rather an anarchistic republic. Happily Ants are not obstinate, and when they see the idea of one of them disengaging itself from the labour commenced, they are content to abandon their own less satisfactory idea and to collaborate in the other's work. They are able, for the rest, to concert plans; the movements of their antennae are a very complicated language containing many expressions, and the worker who desires the acceptance of his own point of view is not sparing in their use.[104] It sometimes happens that his efforts are vain, and that his companions manoeuvre to thwart his schemes. In the presence of such resistance those who are determined to obtain the adoption of their own plans destroy the labours of their opponents; fierce struggles ensue, and here it is the strongest who becomes the architect-general.