34 ANTS AND SOME OTHER INSECTS. 



sharp demarcation from one another than elsewhere. The will 

 consists of centrifugal resultants of sense-impressions and feelings 

 and in turn reacts powerfully on both of these. 



It is of considerable interest to observe the antagonism be- 

 tween different perceptions, feelings, and volitions in ants and 

 bees, and the manner in which in these animals the intensely fixed 

 (obsessional) attention may be finally diverted from one thing to 

 another. Here experiment is able to teach us much. While bees 

 are busy foraging on only one species of flower, they overlook 

 everything else, even other flowers. If their attention is diverted 

 by honey offered them directly, although previously overlooked, 

 they have eyes only for the honey. An intense emotion, like the 

 swarming of honey-bees (von Buttel) compells these insects to 

 forget all animosities and even the old maternal hive to which they 

 no longer return. But if the latter happens to be painted blue, 

 and if the swarming is interrupted by taking away the queen, the 

 bees recollect the blue color of their old hive and fly to hives that 

 are painted blue. Two feelings often struggle with each other in 

 bees that are "crying" and without a queen: that of animosity 

 towards strange bees and the desire for a queen. Now if they be 

 given a strange queen by artificial means, they kill or maltreat her, 

 because the former feeling at first predominates. For this reason 

 the apiarist encloses the strange queen in a wire cage. Then the 

 foreign odor annoys the bees less because it is further away and 

 they are unable to persecute the queen. Still they recognise the 

 specific queen-odor and are able to feed her through the bars of the 

 cage. This suffices to pacify the hive. Then the second feeling 

 quickly comes to the front ; the workers become rapidly inured to 

 the new odor and after three or four days have elapsed, the queen 

 may be liberated without peril. 



It is possible in ants to make the love of sweets struggle with 

 the sense of duty, when enemies are made to attack a colony and 

 honey is placed before the ants streaming forth to defend their 

 nest. I have done this with Formica pratensis. At first the ants 

 partook of the honey, but only for an instant. The sense of duty 

 conquered and all of them without exception, hurried forth to battle 



