Evening star., 1898-01-04
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ANTS.
Remarkable Demonstration of Their
Power of Recollection.

Remarkable Demonstration of Their
Power of Recollection.
From the London Times.
Sir John Lubbock, NJ. P, delivered last
week a lecture on "Ants" to the members
of the Royal British Nurses Association,
at the rooms of the Geological Society,
Hanover square, w. The lecture was the
first of series to be given on various sub
jects to the nurses during the session. Sir
Dyce Duckworth, a vice president of the
association presided and there was large
audience. Sir John Lubbock commenced
by describing his method of observation,
and said that he had been able to make the
ants under investigation SO comfortable
that they lived as nearly as possible under
natural conditions. Their life was much
longer than had been supposed. He had
kept many for several years, two queens
had reached the age of fifteen years. and
these were by far the oldest insects on rec
ord. Ants watched over their young with
a skill and tenderness which not even the
Royal British nurses could excel. They
never quarreled. and no one had ever seen
a dispute between two ants belonging to
the same nest, yet they We're very brave
and defended their homes like little six
legged Leonidases Unlike the so-called
higher animals. they never turned against
a weak or wounded companion. One of his
ants had come into the world a cripple,
but she was carefully tended and fed for
OF a community knew one another and they
would not tolerate a stranger. even of the
same species, in the nest. He had sepa-
rated a nest into halves and found that
even after eighteen months they still rec
ognized their old companions. They did
not however, show any pleasure or sur
prise at meeting them again. 1t had been
suggested that ants recognized one another
by sort of password, but this was not the
case He had made fifty ants quite drunk
and incapable and then put them near a
nest to which twenty-five Of them belonged.
These twenty-five were carried back into
the nest. where, no doubt. they slept of
the effects of their Involuntary debauch;
the other twenty-five were thrown into the
moat which surrounded the ants park. The
senses CT ants differed in many respects
from those of humanity. They probably
heard sounds which were inaudible to us,
and saw the ultraviolet rays which were
invisible to u.s. Some species kept slaves,
and one kind had lost the instinct of feed
ing and would starve If left by themselves,
even If food were provided. He had found
however, that they would live for weeks If
they had slave for an hour a day to feed
and clean them. Several species kept
aphides, which they milked like cows, and
he had found that In the autumn they col
lected the eggs of the aphides and kept
Them all through the winter, although they
were of no use, ard the young aphides
hetched from them gave none Of the sug-
airy fluid till the following May or June,
SO that the ants showed more thrift and
forethought than many human beings.
Their instincts, though SO wonderful, were
very limited, and yet when ants were
watched building their nests, feeding their
young, defending their homes, making
roads, tending their domestic animals, and,
in some cases, their slaves. 1t was difficult
to suppose that they were unconscious
automata. end though their mental powers
were. no doubt, greatly inferior to ours. the
difference was probably not SO much In
kind as in degree.