Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/880

 direction. I then went to the mizentop (fifty feet above water), and saw that the luminous waves or pulsations were really traveling parallel to each other, and that their apparently rotatory motion, as seen from the deck, was caused by their high speed and the greater angular motion of the nearer than the more remote part of the waves. The light of these waves looked homogeneous and lighter, but not so sparkling as phosphorescent appearances at sea usually are, and extended from the surface well under water; they lit up the white bottoms of the quarter-boats in passing. I judged them to be twenty-five feet broad, with dark intervals of about seventy-five between each, or one hundred from crest to crest, and their period was seventy-four to seventy-five per minute, giving a speed, roughly, of eighty-four English miles an hour. . . . I could only distinguish six or seven waves. . . I observed no kind of change in the wind, the swell, or in any part of the heavens, nor were the compasses disturbed. A bucket of water was drawn, but was unfortunately capsized before daylight. The ship passed through oily-looking fish-spawn on the evening of the 15th and morning of the 16th."

An Imported Sovereign.—In a communication to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia the Rev. Mr. McCook records an instance of the adoption of a fertile queen of Crematogaster lineolata, a small black ant, by a colony of the same species. The queen, which had been taken on April 16th was on May 14th introduced to workers of a nest taken on the same day. The queen was alone within an artificial glass formicary, and several workers were introduced. One of these soon found the queen, exhibited much excitement, but no hostility, and immediately ran to her sister workers, all of whom were presently clustered upon the queen. As other workers were gradually introduced, they joined their comrades, until the body of the queen (who is much larcer than the workers) was nearly covered with them. They appeared to be holding on by their mandibles to the delicate hairs upon the female's body, and continually moved their antennæ caressingly. This sort of attention continued until the queen, escorted by workers, disappeared in one of the galleries. She was entirely adopted, and thereafter was often seen moving freely, or attended by guards, about the nest, at times engaged in attending the larvæ and nymphs which had been introduced with the workers of the strange colony. The workers were fresh from their own natural home, and the queen had been in an artificial home for a month. As among ants the workers of different nests are usually hostile to each other, this adoption of an alien queen is an example of the strong instinct which controls for preservation of the species.

Ant-Intelligence.—A wonderful exhibition of ant-intelligence was witnessed by Mr. E. W. Cox, who gives in "Nature" an account of his observations. Two large cockroaches having been killed, their bodies were left lying on a gravel-strewed shelf in a hot-house; this shelf was four feet from the floor. In about twenty minutes a swarm of ants emerged from their nest, which was at some distance, climbed the wall, gained the shelf, and there, dividing into two parties, proceeded to take possession of the carcasses. The ants were the smallest of their kind; the body of their prey was nearly two inches long and half an inch in width. In order to carry these huge carcasses to their nest the ants had first to draw them for a space of ten inches over rough gravel, then along a smooth board for two feet, then to drop them to the floor beneath, then to drag them over some very rough rubble for sixteen inches, and finally to pass them between two slabs of wood into the nest. The author recounts as follows the difficulties encountered by one of the parties in removing the prey: They surrounded the corpse of the dead cockroach, and, seizing it with their mandibles, moved it onward a little way. It was inclined on its side, and when moved the projecting edges of the side hitched in the stones and prevented progress. On some larger stones near the spot were seen half a dozen ants looking at the work, but taking no part in it. When the hitch occurred, and whenever afterward any obstacle was met, these "surveyors" left their stations, went to the workers, and then returned to their place of observation. Forthwith the laborers changed