Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/138

112 drunk as to come under the rank of incapables. The sober individuals appear exceedingly puzzled at finding their friends in such a condition. As a rule, they picked them up and carried them to the nest, whilst strangers they threw into the water and drowned. In some instances, however, confusion ensued, for a few of the strangers were carried to the nest and friends were thrown into the water; but they did not return to the rescue of their friends, and occasionally they discovered the strangers in the nest and turned them out. Other interesting experiments were made to test the ants' recollection of friends, and Sir John expresses surprise that the ants of an entire nest evidently recognise and know each other. Even after a year's separation, old companions are recognised and amicably received, whereas strangers almost invariably are attacked and maltreated, even when introduced in the mixed company of old friends. There is a difference in this respect, however, among species; for while Lasius flavus behaves as above mentioned, Formica fusca shows a milder and much more courteous demeanour towards neighbours and strangers. In certain kinds of ants sight does not seem to be a very acute sense, inasmuch as the subjoined repeated experiments prove:—Food was placed a few inches from the nest on a glass slip, the straight road to and from which marked ants soon learned, but when the food had been shifted only a short distance from its first position, the same ants kept meandering in an extraordinary circuitous path from several minutes to half an hour before finding out the exact route from food to nest, and vice versa. A diagrammatic chart of the path pursued appeared as one mass of confused and intricate cross lines. Slavery in certain genera is a positive institution, the Amazon ants (Polyergus rufescens) absolutely requiring a slave assistant to clean, dress and feed them. Repeated and varied experiments go to prove that they will rather die than help themselves. There are also parasite attendants on the ants, the curious blind wood-louse (Platyarthrus Hoffmanseggii) being common in nests; but the ants pay little attention to them, and when migrating leave these scavengers behind. Certain Diptera of the family Thoridæ are also parasitic on ants, Sir John having discovered some new species, the recently described Thora formicarum and Platyphora Lubbocki of Mr. G.H. Verrall.

A paper "On the Aspects of the Vegetation of Rodriguez" was read by Dr. I. Bailey Balfour, B.M., who, as Botanist, accompanied the Transit of Venus Expedition to that island in 1874. It seems that, like the Fauna, the Flora of Rodriguez has undergone very considerable changes, through human, subsidiary and local influences.

"The Fungi of the 'Challenger' Expedition" (third notice), by the Rev. M.J. Berkely, and "Tropical Ferns," by Prof. Harrington, U.S., were the titles of two other botanical communications which were taken as read.