Smyrna times., 1881-08-17
Curious Observations on Ants.

Oul 1OQo OUpOI NdblUu6 Uu AubSI
Sir John Lubbock lately read a paper
on the subject at a meeting of the Lin
mean Society. He said that in one of his
former papers (I4inn9an Society journal,
vol. xiv, p. 27S) he had given II series of
experiments made OH ants with light of
different cOlors, in order if possible to de-
termine whether ants had the power of
distinguishing cOlors. For the purpose he
utilized the dread which ants, when i'm
their nest, have of light. Not unnaturally
if nest is discovered, they think they are
being attacked, and hasten to carry their
young away to a darker, and, as they sup
pose, safer place. He satisfied himself,
by hundreds of experiments, that if he
exposed to light the greater part of the
nest, but left any part of it covered over,
the young would certainly be conveyed to
the dark portion. In this manner he sat-
isfied himself that the different rays of
the spectrum act on them in different
manner from that in which they affect us;
for instance, that ants are specially sensi-
tive to the violet rays. But he was anx-
ious to go beyond this, and to attempt to
determine how far their limits of vision
agree with ours. We all know that if a
ray of white light is passed through a
prism, it is broken up into a beautiful band
of colOrs-the spectrum. To our eyes it
is bounded by red at the one end and
violet at the other, the edge being sharply
marked at the red end, but less abruptly
at the violet. But a ray of light contains
besides the rays visible to our eyes others
which are called, though not with absolute
correctness, heat rays and chemical rays.
These, so far from being bounded by the
limits of our vision, extend far beyond it,
the heat rays at the red, the chemical rays
at the violet end. He wished under
these circumstances to determine if posi-
BILE whether the limit of vision in the case
of ants was the same as with us. This
interesting problem he endeavored to
solve as follows: If an ants nest be dis
turbed the ants soon carry their grubs and
chrysalises underground again to place
of safety. Sir John, ayailing himself of
this habit, placed some ants with larvae
and pup9 between two plates of glass
about one-eighth of an inch apart, dis
tance which leaves Just room enough for
the ants to move about freely. He found
that if he covered over part of the glass
with any Opaque substance, the young
were always carried into the part thus
darkened. He then tried placing over
the nest different colored glasses, and
found that if he placed side by side pale
yellow glass and one of deep violet, the
young were always carried under the
former, showing that though the light
yellow was much more transparent to our
eyes, 1t was, on the contrary, much less
to the ants So far he had gone in ex-
periments already recorded; but he now
wished, as already mentioned. to 90 fur
ther, and test the effect upon them of
the ultra violet rays, which to us are in
visible. For this purpose, among other
experiments, he used sulphate of quinine
and bisulphide of carbon, both of which
transmit all the visible rays; and are
therefore perfectly colorless and trans
parent to us, but which completely stop
the ultra violet rays. Over part of one
OF his nests he placed fiat sided bottles
containing the aforementioned fluids
and over another part of n piece of dark
violet glass; in every case the larvae were
carried under the transparent liquids, and
not under the violet glass. Again, he
threw spectrum into a similar nest. and
found that if the ants had to choose be-
tween placing their young in the ultra
violet rays or in the red, they preferred
the latter. He infers, therefore, that the
ants perceive the ultra violet rays, which
to our eyes are quite invisible.
Now as every ray of homogeneous light
which we can perceive at all appears to
us as distinct color, is seems probable
that these ultra violet rays must them
selves appeared to the ants as distinct
and separate color (of which we can form
no idea), but as unlike the rest as red is
from yellow or green from violet. The
question also arises whether white light
TO these insects would differ from our
white light in containing this additional
color. AT any rate, as few of the colors
In nature are pure colors, but always all
arise from the combination of rays of
different wave lengths, and as in such
cases the visible resultant would be com.
posed not only of the rays which we see,
but ofthese ard the ultra violet, it woulda ap-
pear that the cOlors of objects and the gem
erai aspect Of nature must present to them
very different appearance from which
it does to us. Similar experiments which
Sir John also made with some of the
lower crustacea point to the same conclu-
sion, but the account of these he reserved
for future occasion. He then proceeded
to describe some experiments made on the
sense of direction possessed by ants, but
it would not be easy to make these intel
ligible without figures. After detailing
some further experiments on the power of
recognizing friends, he gave some facts
which appear to show that ants, by selec-
tion Of food, can produce either o queen
or a worker at will from a given egg.
Lastly, he stated that he had still some
ants which he had commenced to observe
in 1874 and which are still Lying and in
perfect health they now, therefore, must
be moro than seven years old beinO there