THE HABITS OF ANTS by G. A. Hirn

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 25.

THE HABITS OF ANTS.

By G. A. Hirn

ALTHOUGH the following fact relative to the habits of ants is well known, I have never seen it described with the marked characters and in the clearly defined form in which I have just observed it. I think it will interest the readers of this journal.

Saturday, July 14, 1888, while the sun was shining brightly, I was walking on a road running north and south, and which, at a point that I had reached, skirted a garden wall. I soon observed at my left, toward the wall, a whole legion of brown ants of quite a large size that were moving with a quickened pace, and in good order, in the same direction. The column was about eight inches in width and nearly sixteen feet in length. It started from a piece of ground a little higher than the roadway and covered with grass and weeds. From this it descended by a foot-path inclined more than forty-five degrees, at the center of which it turned abruptly at right angles in order to follow the road. I quickened my pace and reached the head of the column, which was very sharply defined, and followed it attentively in order to see what could be the object of the expedition, for it was clear that it was a question of the carrying out of a well-determined plan. I had already remarked with surprise that, during the march of this army, several ants, seeming to have changed their mind, were retracing their steps and traversing all the ranks; but I soon saw them turn about again, after advising with some of their companions which they had sought. Having reached the large garden gate, the head of the column stopped, and all the new-comers grouped themselves in a circle of wide diameter. It was evident that the ants had united in a council of war, and that they were debating upon some plan of prudence to follow. The circle, in fact, soon opened, and the ants began to pass under the leaves of the gate, no longer in a serried column, but scattered over a wide space, and walking more slowly and with deliberation. I saw them move in the direction of a grass plat, and here I lost sight of them. I was feverish that day, and out of humor, and I walked along gloomily, thinking of what I had just observed. I thought it was some unfortunate colony that had exiled itself from its domicile in order to seek more propitious skies. I was thoroughly deceived. I had just witnessed a premeditated pillaging expedition.

Returning by the same route in the course of half an hour, I saw my ants triumphantly starting for home, each holding in its mandibles a large ant's egg, doubtless of another species. Each was proceeding on its own hook, and endeavoring not to lose its prey. Was it, in fact, prey that they had just sought for their table, by a barbarous refinement of taste? or was it, rather, eggs that they wished to have hatched in their own domiciles in order to convert the young ants into slaves, of which, by a just retribution, they in turn would become the slaves, by losing the habit of working? Was it an odious act of rapine and violence that I had just witnessed, or must we admit that ants thus deprived of their progeniture willingly resign themselves to their fate and are predestined thereto? At all events, the defense, if defense there had been, could not have been very energetic. The pillagers were not pursued, and not a wounded individual appeared among the victors.

The first part of the drama had saddened me, but had left me with a false notion; the end saddened me more yet. I consoled myself, however, by saying to myself that if these slave-making ants are not better than their similars among men, they at least understand their true interests better. They do not maltreat their victims very much, since they eventually become the humble vassals of the latter. And then, thought I, too, perhaps the naturalists, who have well observed these captures of one race by another, have not awaited the end. Ants of a large brown species exist that capture eggs, and it must be, then, that either they are not robbed of their entire progeniture, or that the slaves some day or another go back home, dividing in their turn the victors of the day before. Perhaps one of these days I shall see a procession of smaller ants proceeding quietly toward their original abode.

Since the epoch in which Descartes, by an inspiration (this time inauspicious) of his genius, tried to reduce animals to the state of machines, and in which Malebranche, his fanatical disciple, carried this idea to the point of extravagance, and since the epoch in which Buffon, in contradiction to his pompous tirades on the qualities of the dog, horse, etc., endeavored to prove that all is instinct and mechanism in the animal, a considerable progress has been made in this line of questions. No more than any astronomer to-day disputes the plurality of the worlds, does any naturalist longer dispute the manifestations (often very elevated) of intelligence, reasoning, and other physical faculties, not in the animal kingdom taken in a lump, as done by many persons in order to deny the fact more easily, but in certain species and certain individuals of such species. Man being considered (by himself, be it understood) as the highest type of animate and living nature, it might be thought that these inferior beings, which, in certain respects, are comparable to him, would be the very ones that, by their organization, resembled him most. Although in fact that is the case, generally speaking, we nevertheless meet with exceptions that seem to us true enigmas. What more different from our own than the organization of an ant? And yet, in the scene that I have described, we find ourselves in the presence of acts in which instinct as a prime mover is no longer merely in the background, and which suppose reasoning, prolonged observation, and means of communication between individuals that no one would have suspected a priori.

The two ant-hills that I speak of—those of the pillagers and the pillaged—are very distant from each other, and one of them is in an inclosure. I follow the same path daily, but I never observed ants traversing it before. Instinct may say to the large brown ants that there exist other ants capable of doing what they themselves do not wish and know not how to do; but here the revelations of such instinct stop. In order to satisfy it, the incapable ants must plainly have had explorers to go to a distance to look for a colony of workers, to boldly enter the latter's quarters in order to see when the laying of eggs would take place, and then return home and report the time thereof to their companions. Such information must have been communicated quickly to the entire colony, and the order to move must have been perfectly understood, since the head of the column was advancing in good order and with a quick pace. Moreover, this legion must have had guides that were very sure of their business and of the objective point to be reached. The ants that turned back and quickly traversed all the ranks, to see if everything was proceeding according to rule, probably knew that among their kind, as among our own, intelligence and the sentiment of duty are not the same with all. The council of war held in the circle before the attack of the camp to be pillaged is a proof of a well-reasoned prudence. No unwise head in command said, 'All is ready.'

In what precedes, I do not intend to teach the reader anything new. He will find in the well-written work of Brehm some remarkable observations on the habits and aptitudes of ants. The reason that I have entered at some length upon this subject is because I had never seen a succession of acts more varied displayed among these little creatures, and all combining to lead the spectator to the same forced conclusion. To have seen nothing but mechanism and blind instinct in the scene that I witnessed, I should myself have had to be endowed with scarcely anything else than these two motors. The reader will certainly join me in this conclusion.—G. A. Hirn, in La Nature.