ANTS AND SOME OTHER INSECTS. 3! 



The combats between ants, too, show certain very consistent aims 

 of behavior, especially the struggles which I have called chronic 

 combats (combats dfroid}. After two parties (two colonies brought 

 together) have made peace with each other, one often sees a few 

 individuals persecuting and maltreating certain individuals of the 

 opposite party. They often carry their victims a long distance off, 

 for the purpose of excluding them from the nest. If the ant that 

 has been borne away returns to the nest and is found by her perse- 

 cutrix, she is again seized and carried away to a still greater dis- 

 tance. In one such case in an artificial nest of a small species of 

 Leptothorax, the persecuting ant succeeded in dragging her victim 

 to the edge of my table. She then stretched out her head and 

 allowed her burden to fall on the floor. This was not chance, for 

 she repeated the performance twice in succession after I had again 

 placed the victim on the table. Among the different individuals of 

 the previously hostile, but now pacified opposition, she had con- 

 centrated her antipathy on this particular ant and had tried to make 

 her return to the nest impossible. One must have very strong pre- 

 conceived opinions if in such and many similar cases one would 

 maintain that ants are lacking in individual decision and execution. 

 Of course, all these things happen within the confines of the in- 

 stinct-precincts of the species, and the different stages in the exe- 

 tion of a project are instinctive. Moreover, I expressly defend my- 

 self against the imputation that I am importing human reflection 

 and abstract concepts into this volition of the ant, though we must 

 honestly admit, nevertheless, that in the accomplishment of our 

 human decisions both hereditary and secondary automatisms are 

 permitted to pass unnoticed. While I am writing these words, my 

 eyes operate with partially hereditary, and my hand with secondary 

 automatisms. But it goes without saying that only a human brain 

 is capable of carrying out my complex innervations and my con- 

 comitant abstract reflections. But the ant must, nevertheless, as- 

 sociate and consider somewhat in a concrete way after the manner 

 of an ant, when it pursues one of the above-mentioned aims and 

 combines its instincts with this special object in view. While, 

 however, the instinct of the ant can be combined for only a few 



