St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1881-11-26
Insect Civilizations.
[City Iteln.]

| ltlty lIcllJ
The progress of scientific investiga-
ton has made it a very difficult matter
of late years to establish a difference
between instinct and reason; and the
| idea that animals act rather through
sort of mechanical intelligence than
through a species of reasoning, devel-
oped, like our own, upon the result Of
manifold experience, is being generally
pecially curious are the discoveries
which have been made regarding the
brain power of insects. There are
doubtless many of our readers who be-
| lieve that insects have no brain, and
who attribute the organization of those
wonderful monarchs OF the wraps and
bees, or the still more wonderful repub-
lie of the ants, to blind instinct-a
qualifying term very easy to use, but
very difficult to define. The fact is,
however, that insects have brains, and
brains of immense power when their
volume is compared with that of the
higher animals. When it was once
fully established that the development
of intelligence correspondent with that
OF the nervous system, entomologists
applied this rule successfully in their
studies of insect life and as the weight
Of the brain compared with that of the
body affords correct indication Of
beings and animals, so does it also
enable us to classify the intelligence of
insects. In the ant the brain is very
large, and the ant is the most intelli-
gent of all insects. Indeed Drawn says
that the brain OF an ant is the most mar
vellOus particle OF matter in the universe;
showing that the most extraordinary
mental activity may be manifested in
an almost inperceptible mass of nervous
substance A writer on science in LII
lustration cites good authority for the
statement that the intelligence of an
ant may be compared with that of an
elephant to the advantage of the ant !.
Next to the ants come the bees, accord
ing to Vitus Graders classification Of
insect intelligence; but beetles appear
to be the most stupid of all insects
their brains being only one threet thou
sandth part of the volume Of their
bodies. The brains OF insects are not
placed in their heads, but in the thorax-
which accounts for the fact that an
insect is not easily killed by decapita-
ton. Recent cruel, but interesting eX-
periments with insects have shown that
their little brains have lobes and di
visions corresponding with those of
human beings or animals, and that &C
cording to which of these lobes is in
jured certain special faculties of intel
/ ligence are destroyed. There can be
no doubt that ants have a peculiar
language Of their own, capable Of ex
pressing vast number of ideas with
great rapidity.
The results Of these discoveries ought
to inspire greater interest and kind
ness among human beings to the lower
forms of life. Science having once dis
covered the fact of insect intelligence,
may also be able to find future appli-
cation of that intelligence to the benefit
of man. A curious fancy also suggests
itself here. The ant has survived all
the cataclysms which rendered extinct
the greatest races Of mammalia. Is it
altogether impossible that after human
intelligence has disappeared from the
world, sect-intelligence might sue
coed it-with a practical knowledge of
all the arts we now boast Of as our
exclusive property?