New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-05-17
The Sluggard's Teacher.

On February 10, 6C Cno Lln0e8n SOcloIy,
in London, Sir John Lubbock made fur
ther communication on his observations on
ants. His paper was divided into three
heads. l. The power of intercommunica-
ton among ants as to information about
locality of food, etc. 9. Their organ of
sense. g. Their affection and regard for
one another. His arrangement for testing
their power of communicating information
as to route and locality was modified in
some minor respects in different sets OF
observations, but the essential features of
it were these: He had a glass box for the
"nest," so that he could watch what was
being done inside. This was placed on
pole about as high as the level of his eye.
On the other side of the pole was board
intended as promenade for the ants.
Near to this were three pieces Of glass the
size Of microscopic slides, and these
were connected with the board by strips
of paper, which served as bridges
On one of the pieces of glass was
D laced a collection of food, and on the
other two there was nothing. Two ants
were taken and marked with spots of color,
as in former observations, go that they
should be readily recognized. There were
both taken, one after the other, to the store
of food, and were guided and taught their
way to the nest. They soon learned their
way to and from the nest to the food sup
ply, coming out of the door along the out
side of the pole, around that, across the
board, along the paper bridge, and so to the
glass that supported the food, and so back
again to the nest. Sir John LubbOck's OBJ.
ject was to watch whether the other ants
would find out the food, and, if so, to test
as far as possible whether they found it
from information given, or whether they
periods, as he could spare the time,
10 watching the movements of the ants,
counting the number Of journeys made
by the marked ants, and also re-
cOrding how many untaught strangers,
as he called them, made their way from the
board along the right bridge to the food.
At his first period of observation he found
that, while his marked ants made forty
journeys with food, nineteen strangers also
came onto the bridges. OF these two only
turned to the food, eight turned to the
wrong bridge, and the rest went straight
on. Notifications in the arrangements OF
the bridges were made in different ways,
while the rest OF the construction was LETT
unaltered. The observations made on diff
ferent days and during periods of different
duration. all showed the same result. The
marked ants which had been taught their
way pursued their work steadily and sys.
tematically, while of the strangers only
very small percentage reached the food, the
remainder taking one OF the bridges
that led them wrong. For example,
at one period OF watching, out of
$50 strangers who crossed the bridges
only twenty -one went the right way to the
food. In one set of arrangements it was
found that while all had to travel thirty
inches along the same road, and the diverg-
ing bridges were but another two inches
long, the large proportion went wrong in
reaching the food in that last two inches.
Tho notion that ants have the power of
making communications about routes and
localities seems, therefore, to be fallacious.
| In referring to the organs of sense, Sir John
| had endeavored to ascertain whether the
antenna are organs of hearing or of emell.
He had tried them with all sorts of noises
he could contrive, and found no results.
If ants have hearing they must be sensible
to those vibrations Of the air which do not
affect the human ear. But he had also tried
the antenn@ with smells, and he found that if
he put . fine camel's hair pencil with .
scent on it near one Of them 1t shrank