Ants, Bees, and Wasps

Ants bees wasps_title page
Adoption Amount: $750
Category: Preserve for the Future
Location: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library

Ants, bees, and wasps. A record of observations on the habits of the social Hymenoptera

By Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913). New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1908.

This volume contains the author’s record of various experiments with ants, bees, and wasps at the turn of the 20th century. Lubbock wrote that his "object has been not so much to describe the usual habits of these insects as to test their mental condition and powers of sense." Beautifully illustrated with color plates, this volume is an early study in behavior of these social Hymenoptera. This copy is from the library of Dr. Robert Silberglied, Research Entomologist, devoted to the study of tropical insects at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. His research included studies of the color patterns of butterflies, which led to a new theory of butterfly courting behavior in the 1980s.

Un volumen que contiene el registro del autor de varios experimentos con hormigas, abejas y avispas en el cambio de siglo XX. Lubbock escribió que su "objeto no ha sido tanto describir los hábitos habituales de estos insectos como probar su condición mental y los poderes de los sentidos." Bellamente ilustrado con placas de color, este volumen es un estudio temprano sobre el comportamiento de estos Hymenoptera sociales. Esta copia es de la biblioteca del Dr. Robert Silberglied, Entomólogo de Investigación, dedicado al estudio de insectos tropicales en el Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales. Su investigación incluyó estudios de los patrones de color de las mariposas, lo que condujo a una nueva teoría del comportamiento de corte de mariposas en la década de 1980.

Condition and Treatment: 

This is an early-20th century cloth bound volume. The textblock is split and the cover is detaching at the front board. The title page is detached with areas of loss.  Conservators will remove the textblock from the case, resew the textblock, and then the repaired textblock will be recased in the original binding.

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