A PEEP INTO AN ANTS' NEST. THE name of Sir John Lubbock has long been connected with the subject of ants and bees, and he has obtained a foremost place among the investigators into this department of insect life. Yet his scientific work, laborious and exhaustive as it is, does not interfere with his performance of the duties which devolve upon him in his professional and political capacities as a banker and member of parliament. Amid all the demands which these duties make upon his time and energies, and which themselves might be deemed sufficient employment for any one man, he yet finds time to pursue his favourite studies in natural history; and the books and papers which he has issued thereon are not more remarkable for their revelations of insect and plant life, than for the evidence they give of most laborious and painstaking research on the part of the writer. Sir John Lubbock has recently issued a new volume, the result of ten years' experiment and observation, entitled, Ants, Bees, and Wasps (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.), some of the interesting and startling facts of which, so far as they relate to ants, we propose to bring before our readers.

Ants have long afforded amusement and wonder to observers, on account of what might be called their near approach to human intelligence, as exhibited in their social organisation, their large communities, their elaborate habitations, their education of their young, their military tactics, their construction of roadways and bridges, and their possession of domestic animals, and even, in some cases, of slaves. In this country we have more than thirty kinds of ants; but they become much more numerous in species, as well as individuals, in warmer countries, more than a thousand different species being known to exist. The author tells us that he has kept in captivity about half of our British species of ants, as well as a considerable number of foreign forms, and for the last few years he has generally had from thirty to forty communities under observation. After

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trying various plans, he found the best way to keep the ants was in nests consisting of two panes of common window-glass, about ten inches square, laid flat one above the other, but kept apart to a distance of a quarter of an inch or less by thin slips of wood round the edges, the space between the panes being filled up with fine earth, in which the ants devise such compartments as they require. The object of restricting the space between the panes of glass to a quarter of an inch or so, is that the ants may not be able to hide themselves from observation, which they would be likely to do were there a greater depth of earth. Moreover, there being glass below as well as above, the movements of the ants can at all times be well observed. These nests are placed on a stand, one above the other at intervals apart, but arranged so that each nest be detached for purposes of special observation. Various means also, such as surrounding their nests with water, are taken to prevent the ants from escaping, or passing from one nest to another. These nests afford special facilities for observing the internal economy of ant-life; and especially for watching and recording the actions of individual ants. For this purpose, the particular insect to be watched requires to be marked, and the most convenient mode of marking them was, he found, either with a small dab of paint on the back, or, in the case of bees or wasps, by snipping off a minute fragment at the extremity of the wing. This, from the structure of the wing, gives the insect no pain, nor does it interfere with its flight.

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No two species of ants, says Lubbock, are identical in habits; and, on various accounts, their mode of life is far from easy to unravel. In the first place, most of their time is passed underground; all the education of the young, for instance, is carried on in the dark. The life of the ant falls into the four well-marked periods usual with insects—those of the egg, of the larva or grub, of the pupa or chrysalis, and of the perfect insect or imago. The eggs are white or yellowish, and are said to hatch in fifteen days;

but those observed by Lubbock have taken a month or six weeks. The larvæ are small, white, legless grubs, which that section of the ant-communities called workers carefully tend and feed, carrying them about from chamber to chamber, probably in order to secure for these baby ants the most suitable amount of warmth and moisture. The larvæ, also, are very often assorted according to age. The author remarks that it is sometimes very curious to see them arranged in groups according to size, so that they remind one of a school divided into five or six classes. When they enter the chrysalis state, some of the larvae are covered with silken cocoons, others remain naked. The reason of this distinction is not yet understood; but the curious fact is noted, that as a general rule, the species which have not a sting, spin a cocoon, while those which have a sting are naked. After remaining some days in the chrysalis state, they emerge as perfect insects. In many cases, however, they would perish in the attempt, if they were not assisted; and it is very pretty, says Sir John Lubbock, to see the older ants helping them to extricate themselves, carefully unfolding their legs and smoothing out the wings, with truly feminine tenderness and delicacy.

Under ordinary circumstances, an ants' nest, like a beehive, consists of three kinds of individuals, namely, workers or imperfect females (which constitute the great majority), males, and perfect females. There are, however, often several queens in an ants' nest-these queens being provided with wings; but after a single flight they tear them off, and do not again quit the nest. Very young ants devote themselves at first to the care of the larvæ and pupæ, and take no share in the defence of the nest or other out-of-door work until they are some days old. This seems so arranged because at first their skin is comparatively soft, and it would be undesirable for them to undertake rough work or run into danger until their armour had had time to harden. When they are sufficiently strong, they join the workers, and their education may then be said to have begun. The division of labour among the ants is still further developed. Among the slave-keeping species, the mistresses, for instance, never go out themselves for food, leaving all this to the slaves. Others, again, send out foraging expeditions, certain ants being told off for this purpose; and if any member of the expedition is taken prisoner or otherwise prevented from returning to the nest, it is observed that another ant is sent to replace it.

The food of ants consists of insects, great numbers of which they destroy; of honey, honey-dew, and fruit; indeed, scarcely any animal or sweet substance seems to come amiss to them. They are, however, particularly fond of honey, and one species of ants, from Mexico, take a very curious way of storing it up for use. This is by selecting certain individuals among them to act as receptacles of food-serving indeed as animated honey-pots! To them the foragers bring their supplies, and their whole duty seems to be to receive the honey, retain it, and redistribute it when required. These living honey-jars are packed till the abdomen of the creature is distended to many times its own bulk; consequently, as might be

expected, the ants so used as receptacles of food are very inactive. It is not known that any English species practise this extraordinary method of storing food.

Ants have, further, a human-like inclination for keeping domestic animals. Some species, such as the small brown garden ant, keep tiny aphides (a kind of green plant-lice) as milk-cows. They go out and ascend bushes in search of them. When the ant finds one, she strokes and caresses the aphis gently with her antennæ, and the aphis emits a drop of sweet fluid, which the ant imbibes. Sometimes the ants even build coveredways-a kind of cow-sheds of earth-for the aphides, which moreover they protect from the attacks of other insects. But this is not all. The yellow ants collect the root-feeding species of aphides in their nests, and tend them as carefully as their own young. And they not only guard the mature aphides, which are useful, but also the eggs of the aphides, which of course, until they come to maturity, are quite useless. Nor is the aphis the only domestic animal kept by the ants. Another class of ant-guests are those which reside actually in the galleries and chambers of, and with, the ants, but which the latter never harm. Of these, the commonest in England is a species allied to the Podura-a kind of wingless insects, known, from their leaping powers, by the name of skipjack or spring-tail. The member of this species which the ant favours is an active bustling little thing, which runs about among the ants, keeping its antennæ in a state of constant vibration. Another guest of the ants is a sort of white woodlouse. Both of these last-mentioned favourites are blind, probably, says Lubbock, from living so constantly in the dark. 'It is certain,' he adds, that the ants intentionally (if I may so say) sanction the residence of these insects in their nests. An unauthorised interloper would be at once killed. I have, therefore, ventured to suggest that these insects may perhaps act as scavengers.'

With the exception of the aphides, the guests just mentioned have no particular attention paid them by the ants. But this is not the case with still another favourite, which, by the way, is also blind. This is the curious little beetle called Claviger-from its club-shaped antennas which is quite blind, and appears to be absolutely dependent upon the ants. 'It even seems to have lost the power of feeding itself; at anyrate, it is habitually fed by the ants, who supply it with nourishment as they do one another. The ants are evidently careful to keep these tiny beetles clean, as they are seen frequently to lick the whole upper surface of the body. On one occasion, an observer saw a beetle fed by an ant. Several ants were sucking a morsel of sugar, when the beetle approached one of them, and tapped her several times on the head with its antennæ. The ant then opened her mandibles, and fed the beetle as she would have done one of her own species. The beetle crept upon sugar, but did not appear able to feed itself. The author thinks it not altogether impossible that some of these same insects may be kept by ants merely as pets.

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Among ants, as a rule, each species lives by itself. There are, however, interesting excep tions, some small species being found exclusively

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in the nests of certain larger species. It is not known, however, what the relation between these species is. In one case, when the large ants change their nest, the smaller species are seen to follow them, 'running about among them and between their legs, tapping them inquisitively with their antennæ, and even sometimes climbing on to their backs, as if for a ride, while the large ants seem to take little notice of them. They almost seem to be the dogs, or perhaps the cats, of the ants. Another small species, which makes its chambers and galleries in the walls of the nests of larger species, is the bitter enemy of its hosts. The latter cannot get at them, because they are too large to enter the galleries. The little species, therefore, are quite safe; and, as it appears, they make incursions into the nurseries of the larger ant, and carry off the larvæ as food. It is as if we had small dwarfs, about eighteen inches to two feet long, harbouring in the walls of our houses, and every now and then carrying off some of our children into their horrid

dens.'

There is another striking feature in the social organisation of ants which we must notice; that is, their habit of keeping slaves. Most ants will carry off the larvae and pupa of other species if they get a chance; and this throws light upon that most remarkable phenomenon, the existence of slavery among them. If you place a number of larvæ and pupae in front of a nest of the Horse ant, for instance, they are soon carried off; and those which are not immediately required for food remain alive for some time, and are even fed by their captors.' This is not, however, a confirmed habit with the Horse ant; but there is an allied species, which exists in some of our southern counties and throughout Europe, with which it has become an established practice. These ants make periodical expeditions, attack neighbouring nests, and carry off the pupa. When the pupa come to maturity, they find themselves among others of their own species, the results of previous predatory expeditions. They adapt themselves to circumstances, assist in the ordinary household duties, and, having no young of their own species, feed and tend those of their mistresses.

This species of slave-holding ants, while aided in their duties by their slaves, do not themselves lose the instinct of working. But there is another species of slave-holders, the Amazon ant, which do, and which have become almost entirely dependent upon their slaves. They indeed present a striking picture of the degrading tendencies of slavery. Even their bodily structure has undergone a change; the mandibles have lost their teeth, and have become mere nippers -deadly weapons indeed, but useless except in war. They have lost the greater part of their instincts: their art, that is, the power of building; their domestic habits, for they show no care for their own young, all this being done by the slaves; their industry-they take no part in providing the daily supplies; if the colony changes the situation of its nest, the masters are all carried by their slaves on their backs to the new one; nay, they have even lost the habit of feeding. Huber placed thirty of them with some larvæ and pupæ, and a supply of honey, in a box. "At first," he says, they appeared to pay some little attention to the larvæ; they

carried them here and there, but presently replaced them. More than one-half of the Amazons died of hunger in less than two days. They had not even traced out a dwelling, and the few ants still in existence were languid and without strength. I commiserated their condition, and gave them one of their black companions. This individual, unassisted, established order, formed a chamber in the earth, gathered together the larvæ, extricated several young ants that were ready to quit the condition of pupa, and preserved the life of the remaining Amazons." This observation,' adds Lubbock, has been fully confirmed by other naturalists. However small the prison, however large the quantity of food, these stupid creatures will starve in the midst of plenty rather than feed themselves.'

We must now say something about the military tactics of these wonderful little creatures. Different species have their several peculiar modes of fighting. One species, for instance, never attack, and scarcely ever defend themselves. Their skin being very hard, they roll themselves into a ball. Another species has the habit, like reynard, of feigning death as a means of self-protection. But there are other species who are regular Zulus. Amongst these is the Horse ant, before mentioned. This ant, when it goes to war, attacks in serried masses, seldom sending out detachments, while single ants scarcely ever make individual attacks. They rarely pursue a flying foe, but give no quarter, killing as many enemies as possible, and never hesitating, with this object, to sacrifice themselves for the common good. Another species have a similar mode of attack, and when in close quarters they bite right and left, dancing about to avoid being bitten themselves. When fighting with larger species, three or four of them seize upon an enemy at once, and then pull different ways, so that their big antagonist cannot get at any one of her foes. One of them then jumps on her back, and cuts, or rather saws, off her head. The Amazon ants, whose dependence for food and comfort upon their slaves has been already described, are, however degraded in a civil sense, terrible gladiators when there is fighting to be done. Their jaws are very powerful and pointed: and if an individual of this order is attacked, she at once takes her enemy's head into her jaws, closes her mandibles, so that the points pierce the brain of her enemy, paralysing the nervous system, the victim falling dead in convulsions. In this manner, a comparatively small force of these Amazons will fearlessly attack much larger armies of other species, and themselves suffer scarcely any loss.

We cannot conclude without some allusion to the more strictly social-we had almost said moral-behaviour of ants. As regards their treatment of their distressed neighbours and friends, Sir John Lubbock, after numerous interesting and amusing experiments, is unable to give the little creatures a very good character. Hatred is much stronger than affection among them. He has indeed often been surprised that in certain cases ants render one another so little assistance. If an ant is fighting with one of another species, her friends rarely come to her assistance, passing by, and not even stopping to look on. In the case of ants in a half-drowned