THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2164, 15 August 1895, Page 48

THE NATURALIST.

Hearing the. Ants Talk. — A Naturalist's Eavesdropping.

That ants are capable of producing sounds intelligible to their fellows and even audible to our ears seems to be proved by the experiments of Sir John Lubbock, Landois, Robert Wroughton, of Bombay ; O. Janet, Forel, E. Waremann, and others. It also seems to be determined that the sounds are produced by the rubbing together of superficial portions of the body. .

A simple yet ingenious contrivance is described for enabling an observer to hear and study these sounds. A glass funnel is set, small end down, in the middle of a square of window- glass sin or Gin wide, fitting closely enough to prevent the insects crawling out under it. A bunch of tbe ants about as large as a chestnut and free from any foreign substance is dropped through the funnel, and that is lifted up at once. While the ants are still confused, and before any of them, can reach the edge of the glass, it is covered with another equare like it, which has been surrounded, a short distance from its edge, by a pad of putty. This coc fines the ants and prevents their being crushed. The two plates of glass are pressed together to within about the thickness of an ant's body, but closer on one side than the other, so as to hold some tight and leave others free to take some positions as please them.

On applying this box of ants to the ear as one would a watch, a regular buzzing would be beard like tbat of water boiling in an open vessel, and. with it some very clear stridulations. The ants may be kept alive several hours, and even days, in this prison if it is not air-tight; and whenever the ants are excited the Btridulations may be heard very numerous and intense.

The etrid ulations are supposed to be produced by rubbing tbe rough, scaly surface of the chitinouß covering, which is described as looking, when seen in one direction nnder the microscope, like the teeth of a saw. — Popular Science Monthly.

Bjbds* Egos.— Bird* which build in the

open ssem uniformly to have coloured eggs; while those which possess' concealed pr covered nests have white eggs ; the colour does hot vary much in the same species ia one climate or another.

The Monkey and the Suoab.— A tamo monkey in India recently was given a lump of sugar inside a corked bottlo. The monkey waß of an in quiring mind, and it nearly killed him. Sometimes, in an impulse of dbgust, he would throw the bottle away oat of bis own reach, and then be distraoted until it was given back to him. At other times be would Bit with a countenance of the most Intense dejection, contemplating the bottled sugar, and then, as if pulling himself together for another effort at solution, would sternly take up the problem afresh and g*ze into the bottle. He would tilt it up one way, and try to drink the sugar out of the neck, and then, suddenly reversing it, try to catch the eugar as it fell out at the bottom. Under the impression tbat he could capture tbe sugar by surprise, he kept rasping his teeth against; the glass in futile bites, and, warming to the pursuit of the revolving lump, used to tie himself into regular knots round the bottle. Fits of the moat ludicrous melancholy would alternate with spasms of delight as a new idea' setmed to suggest itself, followed by a fresh series of experiments. Nothing availed, however, until one day a light was shed upon the problem by a jar containing bananas falling from the table with a crash, and the fruit rolling about in all directions. His m6nkeyßhip contemplated the catastrophe, and reasoned upon it with the intelligence of a Humboldfc. Lifting the bottle high in his claws, he brought it down upon the floor with a tremendous noise*, smashing tbe glass iuto fragments, after which he calmly transferred the sugar to' his mouth and munched it with much satisfaction. — Christian Advocate.