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The Junior Classics — Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories by Unknown
page 299 of 507 (58%)
queens are really mothers. Nevertheless it is true, and it is
curious, that the working ants and bees always turn their heads
towards the queen. It seems as if the sight of her gives them
pleasure. On one occasion, while moving some ants from one nest
into another for exhibition at the Royal Institution, I
unfortunately crushed the queen and killed her. The others,
however, did not desert her, or draw her out as they do dead
workers, but on the contrary carried her into the new nest, and
subsequently into a larger one with which I supplied them,
congregating round her for weeks just as if she had been alive. One
could hardly help fancying that they were mourning her loss, or
hoping anxiously for her recovery.

The communities of ants are sometimes very large, numbering even up
to 500,000 individuals; and it is a lesson to us, that no one has
ever yet seen a quarrel between any two ants belonging to the same
community. On the other hand, it must be admitted that they are in
hostility, not only with most other insects, including ants of
different species, but even with those of the same species if
belonging to different communities. I have over and over again
introduced ants from one of my nests into another nest of the same
species, and they were invariably attacked, seized by a leg or an
antenna, and dragged out.

It is evident therefore that the ants of each community all
recognize one another, which is very remarkable. But more than
this, I several times divided a nest into two halves, and found
that even after a separation of a year and nine months they
recognized one another, and were perfectly friendly; while they at
once attacked ants from a different nest, although of the same
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