Comprehension

Directions for Questions: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions accordingly.

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 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 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 of them insensible, First I tried chloroform; but this was fatal to them, and 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 whiskey for a few moments. I took fifty specimens-twenty five percent from one nest and twenty five percent 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 I had made drunk. They seemed quite astonished to find their comrades in such a disgraceful condition, and as much at a loss to know what to do with their drunkards as we were. After a while, however, they carried them all away; the strangers they took to the 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 spirits. Thus it is evident that they know their friends even when incapable of giving any sign or password.

CAT/1994

Question . 161

Attitude of ants toward strangers of the same species may be categorized as