Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1874 — Beason Among Insects. [ARTICLE]

Beason Among Insects.

Loourxo at the nervous system of in-■-ects. in whoy» there i- no definite brarn, bill merely a succession of ganglia united by a double nervous cord, many physiol ugists have thought that reason could be one of the attributes of the insect race. Yet-nothing is more certain- than that they are able to converse with each other and comm niieate ideas, this fact showing that they must possess reason. As far as we know the hymenopterous iusects^-namdy,—tbebces t waispkand tnits, are the best linguists of the insect race, their language being chiefly conducted by means of their antenme. A good example.of this was witnessed by me last summer (1872). At hreakfast-:ime some pieces of the white of egg were left on a plate. A wasp came in at the window, and after flying’about for a while alighted on 1 lie piate, wentto the piiae ofeeg and tried to carry it off. Wishing to see what tiie insect would do, I would not allow it to be dis urbed. After several Unavailing attempts to lilt the piece of egg the w asp laid it down and flew out of the window. Presently tiro wasps came in, flew direct to the pla e, —picked up the ph ee of egg, and in some way or other contrived to get it out of the window. These were evidently the first wasp and a companion whom it had fetched to help it.

1 -had a kind of suspicion that w hen the wasps reached their home they would tell their companions of their good fortune, and so I put some more egg on the plate and waited. In a very short time wasp after wasp came in, went to the plate without hesitation, and carried off a piece of egg. The stream of w;asps was so regular that 1 was aide to trace them to their nest, which, was in a lane about half a mile from my house. Tne insect had evidently, reasoned with itself that, although tiie piece of egg was too heavy for one wasp, it might be carried by two; sb it went off to find a companion, told it the state of things, and induced it to help it in carrying off the coveted morsel. Then the two had evidently told the other inhab it an ts. _of_ the nest that there was a supply of new* and dainty food within reach, and had acted as guides to the locality. Here is positive proof that these insects possess a very definite language of their own, for it is impossible that human beings could have acted in a more rational manner.

Every one knows that Wasps carry out one of the first principles of the military art by always having the gate of thei’r fortress guarded by a sentinel. Should there be danger, the sentinel gives the alarm, and out dash all the inhabitants at the offender indicated by the sentinel. It is clear that, out of the many hun;d red wasps, which form a full-sized nest, the individual who is to act aS sentinel must be selected and its task appointed. tVe do not know how the selection is' made, but that such is the case is evident; for the rest of the wasps acknowledge their sentinel and trust to it for guarding the approaches of the nest while they go about their usual task of collecting food for the young and new material for the nest. As for ants, some of their performancesare absolutely startling, so closely do they resemble the customs of human i civilization. They have armies commanded by officers. who issue their orders, insist upon obedience, and. on tin- march, will not permit any of the privates to stray from the ranks. There are some ants which will till the ground, weed it. plant the particular grain on which they feed, cut i it when ripe and store it away in their I subterranean granaries. , There are ants i I,which areas arrant slaveholders as any ■ people on earth ever were. They make I -ystvmatie raids on the nests of other j ants, carry off the yet unhatched cocoons, • | and rear,them in their own nests to be I i their servants. . There are ants which bury their dead : a fact which was discovered by acci , den". ’ . A lady had been obliged to kill some ants, the bodies oiL which lay about t* ground. Presently a single ant found ! its dead Companions, and examined them and then went off. Directly it returned j with a number of others, and proceeded! to the dead bodies. Four ants went to each corpse, two lifting it and the other two follow ing, the main bodv, some 2tX) in number, following behind’. The four bearers took their office in turns; one pair relieving the other when "Aliev were tired. They went .straight to a’samiy hiHoekran-.t there the bearers nut down their ..burdens, and the others immedi ately began to dig holts. A dead ant yas then,placed in each grave, and the 1 soil filled in The most curious part of ' the pioceedings was that some six orJ seven ants refused to assist in gravedigging; upon which the rest set on them killed them, dug one large hole and turn bled them unceremoniously into it! , In Froebel’s work on South America there is a good account of the proceedings of some ants:

“ I had several opportunities of observing the manner of several kinds of ants living In, the houses. All of them are very inoffensive and even useful creatures. Oh ope occasion 1 witnessed a remarkable instance of the concerted and organized action of a crowd of them. They were ®f a minute species, but, by the wonderful order and speediness with which they worked together, and which it would have been difficult to realize with men, they succeeded in performing a tasK apparently quite beyond their capability. “ They carried a dead scorpion of fullgrown size up the wall of our room from the floor to the ceiling, and thence along the under-surface of a beam to a considerable distance, ’ when at last they brought It safely into .their best in the interior qf the wood. During the latter* part of this achievement they had to bear the whole weight of the scorpion, together with their own, in their inverted position, and in this way to move along the beam. “ The order was.so perfect that not the slightest deviation from an absolute symmetry and equality of distances and arrangement was observable in the manner of taking hold of the body of the scorpion and in the movement of .the little army of workmen. No corps of engineers could be drilled to a more absolute perfection in the performance of a mechanical task. According to a rough calculation there must have been from 500 to 600 of these intelligent little creatures at work. Besides those engaged in the transport none were seen. A single one was sitting on the sting at the end of the scorpion’s tail as if placed there to overlook and direct the whole movements; all the rest were, without exception, at work. The* operation may have, lasted about an hear.” This scene is an exact reproduction, in the insect world, of the manner in which : the ancient Egyptians and Assyrians conveyed their colossal statues to their places. There we see hundreds of men all dragging at the mukudinous ropes at- : lacked to the car on which the statue i lay, and all pulling in time to the gest- ; tires of a single man placed on the top lof the statue. The ants, however, had a ■ still more difficult tusk than the men; for they possessed no carriage on w hich to lay the scorpion and were obliged to sustain the whole of its weight as they passed over the ceiling. 4ft tire same work Froedel has narrated another example of the manner in which ants can combine and make them selves intelligible to their fellow-insects: “ Another time I witnessed the transmigration of a whole state or wealth of ants, from a hole in the wall, ( across our veranda, into another hole in the opposite wall. “Two facts struck my attention in this case. The - first was that the marching army of these insects, all moving in ®ne direction, consisted of individuals of such a difference in size and shape that to consider them as belonging to one species seemed very difficult, and the idea of a commonwealth of different insect nationalities wa<strongly suggested. “ The second was that some little beetles, of the family of Coccinellida, marched along with the ants from one ho|e into the other; not quite of their own will, for I observed that several times one of them tried to deviate from the line, but was quickly brought back to the ranks by some of the ants placing themselves at its side. The fact of little beetles, of the very family just mentioned, existing in the nests of ants is well known; but it is of considerable intenst to seethe fact repeated in distinct climates, with different species of insects of both tribes, and under opposite circumstances.” As to the different sizes of the ants all entomologists know- that, in the hotter parts of the world, the males, females, soldiers and workers of the same species will vary in size from that of a wasp to that of a common garden-ant, and that the shape and aspect are as different as their size. The second point is a very curious one. It has long been known that many beetles live in ants’ nests, but 1 believe that this is the only record of the beetles accompanying the ants in their migrations.— " Man and Beast Here and Hereafter," by Bet. J. G. Wood, London .