How do these insects manage to make themselves understood in such various ways, asking for help, giving advice, giving invitations? They must have a language of their own, or else they must communicate their impressions by the play of their antennæ. When an ant is hungry, and does not wish to disturb itself from its work, it tells a foraging ant as it passes, by touching it with its antennæ; the latter approaches it immediately, and presents it, on the end of its tongue, some juice it has disgorged for this purpose. The antennæ, then, are used by the ants for the purpose of making themselves understood by each other. Dr. Ebrard, who studied these insects attentively, is of opinion that they use them in the same way as a blind man does his stick, to feel their way with, for their sight is not good. The age to which ants live is not well known. It is believed that the workers live many years. Ants eat all sorts of things. One sees them eating fresh or decaying meat, fruits, flowers, particularly everything which is sugary. They attack living insects, and kill them and suck their blood. Like many insects, they are very fond of sugary liquids--honey, syrups, pure sugar, &c. Dupont de Nemours relates in his Memoirs that, to guarantee his sugar-basin against the invasion of ants, he had found no better plan than to make it "an island," that is to say, to place it in the middle of a vessel full of water. He felt sure that he had made the fortress safe against any attack; but listen to the stratagem made use of by the besiegers. The ants climbed up the wall to the ceiling, exactly perpendicularly over the sugar-basin. From there they let themselves fall into the interior of the place, penetrating thus by main force, and without injuring any one, into the magazine. As the ceiling was very high, the draught caused them to deviate from the straight line, and thus a certain number fell into the fosse of the citadel, that is to say, into the water in the vessel. Their companions stationed on the bank made all efforts imaginable to fish out the drowning ants, but were afraid of taking to the water of such a large lake. All that they could do was to stretch out their bodies as far as possible (keeping on the bank the while), to lend a helping hand to their drowning friends. Nevertheless, the salvage did not progress much; when the ants, which were getting very uneasy, conceived a happy thought. A few were seen to run to the ant-hill, and then to reappear. They brought with them a squad of eight grenadiers, who threw themselves into the water without any hesitation, and who, swimming vigorously, seized with their pincers all the drowning ants, and brought them all on to _terra firma_. Eleven, half-dead, were thus brought to shore, that is, to the rim of the basin. They would probably all of them have succumbed, if their companions had not hastened to lend them assistance. They rolled them in the dust, they