Entomologists are forever disagreeing about ants. Some insist that the ant is brainier and better organized than man; others regard the ant as a slothful, inconsistent dimwit which gets along solely on a few inherited habits. John (The Life of the Spider) Crompton, a British expert, strikes a sprightly middle course. In a new book, Ways of the Ant (Houghton Mifflin; $3.50), he declares that ants, banded together in communities, have evolved emotions, "discipline and intelligence of a high order," even though the individual ant may be a nincompoop compared to a go-it-alone housefly. Some of Author Crompton's evidence:
ΒΆ Some ants...