Sound-producing Ants

Abstract

REFERRING to Mr. Blanford's letter in NATURE, vol. xxv. p. 32; whilst lying awake early one morning before the servants were stirring, when camped in the Deccan at the present small station of Chota or Chick-Soogoor, on the G.I.P. Railway, during the winter of 1868–69, I beard a sound, as Mr. Blanford suggests, repeated at regular intervals of about a second. It sounded as though the wall of the tent was being struck by a light fringe along one side; but noticing that the air was perfectly still, I listened for some minutes, wondering what it was and trying to fix the locality. I got out of bed cautiously and looked out; the whole of one side of the tent for a height of two feet was covered with white ants so thickly that at the first glance I thought the wall was covered with a grey-reddish mud to this height. I was trying to make out how the sound could be produced, when it stopped suddenly, the ants evidently having become aware of my presence; they then began to clear off the wall rapidly, and in a few moments it had become white again. They had not attacked the cotton wall. On looking at the ground round the tent I found their runs extending from a tamarind tope, the nearest trees of which were about 50 feet away. The runs were built in the usual way of red Deccan soil, there were great numbers of them, varying in width from the thickness of twine to 21/2) inches, often crossing each other diagonally. No doubt the ants had found the tent in the evening, and were prepared to make a morning meal of a portion of it, when I disturbed them on looking out. The impression on my mind at the time was that the whole body of ants struck the tent wall at the same time with their heads, and that it was very extraordinary that they all stopped at once; there were no dropping shots, it was an instantaneous cessation along the whole line. The tent, which was a double one, was at least 30 feet long, and the ants possibly extended round the ends.