The communities of ants are sometimes very large, numbering even up to 500 individuals. And it is a lesson to us that no one has ever yet seen a quarrel between any two ants belonging t 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. It is evident therefore; that the ants of each community all recognized one another and were perfectly friendly, while them at once attacked ants from a different nest, although of the same species.
It has been suggested that the ants of each nest have some sign of password by which they recognize one another. To test this they made some of them insensible, first they tried chloroform, but this was fatal to them, and they did not consider the test satisfactory. They decided therefore to intoxicate them. This was less than easy than they had expected. None of there ants would voluntarily degrade themselves by getting drunk. However, they got over the difficult by putting them into whisky for a few moments. They 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 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 they made drunk. They seemed quite astonished to find their comrades in such a disgraceful condition and were as much at al loss to know what to do with them as we were. After a while, however they carried them all away; they took the strangers to the edge of the moat and dropped them into the water, while they bore their friends home into the nest, where by degrees they slept off the effects of the spirits. Thus, it is evident that they know their friends even when it is incapable of giving any sign or password.
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