species.

It has been suggested that the ants of each nest have some sign or
password by which they recognize one another. To test this I made
some insensible. First I tried chloroform, but this was fatal to
them; and as therefore they were practically dead, I did not
consider the test satisfactory. I decided therefore to intoxicate
them. This was less easy than I had expected. None of my ants would
voluntarily degrade themselves by getting drunk. However, I got
over the difficulty by putting them into whisky for a few moments.
I took fifty specimens, twenty-five from one nest and twenty-five
from another, made them dead drunk, marked each with a spot of
paint, and put them on a table close to where the other ants from
one of the nests were feeding. The table was surrounded as usual
with a moat of water to prevent them from straying. The ants which
were feeding soon noticed those which I had made drunk. They seemed
quite astonished to find their comrades in such disgraceful
condition, and as much at a loss to know what to do with their
drunkards as we are. After a while, however, to cut my story short,
they carried them all away: the strangers they took to edge of the
moat and dropped into the water, while they bore their friends home
into the nest, where by degrees they slept off the effects of the
spirit. Thus it is evident that they know their friends even when
incapable of giving any sign or password.

This little experiment also shows that they help comrades in
distress. If a wolf or a rook be ill or injured, we are told that
it is driven away or even killed by its comrades. Not so with ants.
For instance, in one of my nests an unfortunate ant, in emerging
from the chrysalis skin, injured her legs so much that she lay on