ANTS DRUNKEN AND SOBER

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 332, 9 January 1889, Page 6

ANTS DRUNKEN AND SOBER

Sir John Lubbock, in a recent lecture, .said ho had tried experiments to see if ants were capable ot mutual recognition. Bo kept mil* ol the same nesb apart for a year and a half, and. on putting thorn together lie louncl again that there was mutual recognition. Ho was at raid a great many men forgo I their friends in a much less time. Desirous to know by what signal, password, or other ineaus,ants made their recognition, lie reduced one set to insensibility. Chloroform not answering the puiposc, he determined to make them drunk. He found that the only way to make an ant drunk was, not by enticing her to tako poisonous spirit, but by putting her into the whisky. Ho then made the sober ants approach the drunken an t.s. At first the former did not seem to know how to deal with the latter. At last one of the sober ants took up one ot the drunkards bolonging fco a difleronl nest, looked at it, walked slowly to the end of the table, and dropped her inbo some water that was there. The stvai'ger ants were all taken and thrown into the water, Avhilo the ants belonging to the sauie nest were curried back, where he had no doubt they soon recovered from the effects of the drink. This experiment proved that ants did not rccogni&e ono another'by any password ; but iL alfco proved that their faculty of recognition was unerring. The lecturer proceeded to sketch tho senses and moral qujililios of ants, and gave numerous illustrations of affection among themselves, their hostility towards ants bolonging to other ne&Us, and their powors of intercommunication.