ervations have been verified by myself, therefore
the reader will pardon me if I quote freely from his valuable work,
_Ants, Bees, and Wasps_.

The observations of Huber, Ford, Lubbock, and other observers declare
that ants can remember and recognize their kindred after having been
separated from them for several months. "Huber mentions that some ants
which he had kept in captivity having accidentally escaped, met and
recognized their former companions, fell to mutual caresses with their
antennae, took them up by their mandibles, and led them to their own
nests; they came presently in a crowd to seek the fugitives under and
about the artificial ant-hill, and even ventured to reach the
bell-glass, where they effected a complete desertion by carrying away
successively all the ants they found there. In a few days, the ruche was
depopulated. These ants had remained four months without any
communication."[36]

[36] Huber, p. 172; quoted by Lubbock, _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_, p.
120; also by Kirby and Spence, _Introduction to Entomology_, Vol. III.
p. 66; also by Newport, _Trans. Ent. Soc._, London, Vol. II. p. 239.

On one occasion, I took ten _Lasius niger_ and confined them in a
specially constructed formicary so that they could not possibly leave
the nest. I supplied these colonists with a gravid queen, so they very
quickly became satisfied with their new home. Four months thereafter, I
put three of these ants, previously marked with a paint of zinc oxide
and gum arabic, into their former nest. They were at once recognized by
their kindred, which began to caress them with their antennae and to
remove the paint from their bodies. In the course of a half hour, the
paint had all been removed, and I lost sight of them among the other
ants.

A month after the performance of this experiment, I took three marked
ants from the parent nest and placed them in the new nest. They were at
once recognized by the colonists, which received them, as it were, with
open arms and began to cleanse their bodies by removing the paint. In
both of these experiments the recognition appeared to be instantaneous;
there was no hesitancy whatever.

On the other hand, when performing like experiments with _Lasius
flavus_, it took the ants (on two occasions) some little time to
recognize their kindred; when the marked ants were put into the nest
they were at once seized by the other ants, which pulled them about the
nest for some time. They we