mandibles, and made holes in several places, which gave them power of egress and ingress, of which they availed themselves, using the string which bound the muslin as a ladder, and reaching thus the stand which formed the base of their palace. At 8.50 there were as many as two hundred or more on the stand, about twenty on the muslin, through a hole in which one went in and another came out. At 11.30 p.m. there were nearly a hundred on the muslin, several hundred on the stand, and the strings were covered with them. When I lifted up the muslin on September 7, I found the surface of the nest covered with hillocks, or turrets, three inches or more in height.

The sugar placed on the surface for sustenance of the little people was hidden from view. Numbers of ants were in the encircling trench, which I had arranged to keep the little people from roaming, evidently cast there by active members of the community, for they were all dead; and several parts of ants and two larvæ I noticed also in the water. One ant I watched on the stand with a corpse in its mandibles go to the edge of the trench and return without its burden. I placed sugar on the surface near glass at 10.45; cleared the trench of floating ants, of which there were immense numbers, at 12.15. There were about thirty dead bodies on the sugar, and other dead bodies were sparsely scattered over the surface. In one spot there were about sixty or more deposited by the unwearied sextons, one of whom I noticed with a corpse in its mandibles. 1.35 I observed two ants with dead, and I now placed a paper tray between two turrets, nearly in the centre of the surface. At 2.25 there were three dead in the tray, and one or two grains of comminuted wood. At 4.10 there were four dead in the tray, and several grains of wood and one larva. At 10.45 p.m. there was one moving mass of ants upon the surface, about half of the bottom of the tray was covered with pieces of wood, and in the tray only one

At

or two were dead. I noticed a sexton take a dead ant out of the tray, and place it in a cavity by the tray, and disappear under the tray. Then came a second sexton with a dead body in its mandibles, and moved into the tray and then out of the tray with its burden, which it also carried into the cavity. A third I noticed remove a dead body out of the tray, and a fourth carried a corpse down the cavity. A few dead were lying on the surface of the nest, where numbers were seen earlier in the day. Over the sugar by the glass there were numbers of dead. This seemed to be now recognised as the cemetery.

Very little sugar was seen, comminuted wood and dead covered it. No dead were now scattered over the surface; several ants were seen carrying dead. There were very few floating in the trench. There was a difficulty now in reaching it, since the muslin with its strings, which formed the scaling-ladders of the little people, had been removed.

September 8.-2.53. I noticed between forty and fifty dead in the middle of the tray, a thin layer of wood covering the tray. In the cemetery near glass about same number of dead. One ant placed a dead body within its precinct.

September 10.-10.15. The tray was nearly covered with wood. Seventy or eighty dead were in the tray on wood. In the tray, about as many on the shady slope of neighbouring hillock, and about a dozen in depression near glass.

I kept another formicarium of umbrata, having taken a portion of the nest in my front border. When the males were in strong force I placed them in a confectioner's glass vase, with a screen of brown paper, to shade them from the light and induce them to work against the glass. A cardtray they soon filled with earth; and as the males died they were buried in depressions in the soil, in the upper chambers against the glass, on the shady side of the formicarium.

A most interesting incident came under my notice here.

The little sextons utilised the earth-laden card-tray for the burial of some of their dead by carrying the corpses into the cavity formed beneath the tray, the tray forming the slab of, to them, an extensive vault.

From all that I have witnessed and now narrated, surely we may safely affirm that, in their due regard for health and cleanliness, and especially in the disposal of their dead, and in their varied funeral rites, the little people show their wisdom. However, their affection for the living is greater than their respect for the dead. One mourner I observed some time back in another formicarium bearing off a corpse to burial; it let down its burden that it might rest a while, when, looking round, it espied a larva lying helplessly upon the ground. It immediately forsook the dead body of its comrade, to be interred later by itself or another worker, and clasped fondly the tender youngster in its mandibles, and carried it doubtless to the nursery; but I had not time to note the track the foster-mother took.

CHAPTER XII.

Ants live happily together-Instance of unselfish devotion and disinterested kindness witnessed by the author-Exhuming buried companions—Concerted action-Joy at meeting after separation A recognition after four months' absence recorded by Hüber -The author's observation of a recognition after a separation of one year and nearly three months-Successful experiments with members of a colony of F. sanguinea-Sir J. Lubbock's observations -Ants recognised by members of the colony when removed as pupa-Intoxicated and chloroformed ants recognised by their

friends.

I HAVE noticed how happily the members of the same community seem to live together. Harmony reigns everywhere supreme. The little people ever help each other when in need or difficulty. When one is hungry, another feeds it. When one is sickly, another ministers unto it. The smaller workers of not so stout a build or robust a habit as others are borne along in the loving grasp of their more stalwart neighbours. I have seen members of a colony of Formica rufa marching in single file, each with a fellow-worker in its mandibles, the object of its sympathetic regard doubling itself up in order to give its benevolent companion as little inconvenience as possible in the transit. The sympathy of the little people sometimes assumes a most touching aspect. We are told that the eminent entomologist, M. Latreille, once cut off the antennæ of an ant, and its companion, evidently pitying its sufferings,

1 Hüber's Ants, p. 171.

anointed the wounded part with a drop of transparent fluid from its mouth. When a burden is too heavy for one to carry, another will surely come to its succour, and relieve its overtaxed powers by bearing a part of the weight; and if the commissariat department is to be strengthened, and unwilling victims to be sacrificed, for the maintenance of the colony, a foraging party unite to forward the common weal by dragging to the shambles the struggling captive. This I have often witnessed.

A remarkable instance of unselfish devotion and disinterested kindness gave me unmixed satisfaction at Shirley Common on May 9, 1878. I had, for the sake of observation, disturbed a colony of Formica sanguinea, the slavemaking ant. When some of the little people got into difficulties, and were likely to be buried alive beneath the ruin of their desolated home, to extricate them from the fallen débris, was it necessary for me to act the part of a friendly giant and deliver them from their impending doom? By no means. Their own tender-hearted companions were equal to the emergency; in fact, were it not for the perturbation and evident anxiety of those who were at liberty, I should myself have been utterly ignorant of the extent of the catastrophe and the imminence of the peril which threatened with destruction several hapless members of the interesting community.

My attention was directed to a sanguinea which was working with great earnestness at a small hole in the sandy soil with which the nest was constructed, and which it was trying to enlarge, evidently with some determined object in view. I watched with much interest to see what that object was. The little labourer left its occupation but to return and pursue it with renewed vigour; again it left its work and again returned, and then went into an adjacent hole and reappeared after a careful investigation of the cavity. Without disturbing the indefatigable sanguinea, I carefully examined the hole, and noticed the leg of an