136 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



seems to betoken no small knowledge of practical engineer- 

 ing. 



Biichner, after quoting these cases, proceeds to say 

 (loc. cit., p. 120), 



The ants behaved in yet more ingenious fashion under the 

 following very similar circumstances. Herr G. Theuerkauf, 

 the painter (Wasserthorstr. 49, Berlin), writes to the author, 

 November 18, 1875: 'A maple tree standing on the ground 

 of the manufacturer, Vollbaun-., of Elbing (now of Dantzic), 

 swarmed with aphides and ants. In order to check the mis- 

 chief, the proprietor smeared about a foot width of the ground 

 round the tree with tar. The first ants who wanted to cross 

 naturally stuck fast. But what did the next ? They turned 

 back to the tree and carried down aphides, which they stuck down 

 on the tar one after another until they had made a bridge over 

 which they could cross the tailing without danger. The above- 

 named merchant, Vollbaum, is the guarantor of this story, 

 which I received from his own mouth on the very spot whereat 

 it occurred. 



Biichner also gives the following case on the authority 

 of Karl Vogt (loc. cit., p. 128). An apiary of a friend was 

 invaded by ants : 



To make this impossible for the future, the four legs of the 

 beehive-stand were put into small, shallow bowls filled with 

 water, as is often done with food in ant-infested places. The 

 ants soon found a way out of this, or rather a way into their 

 beloved honey, and that over an iron staple with which the 

 stand was attached to a neighbouring wall. The staple was 

 removed, but the ants did not allow themselves to be defeated. 

 They climbed into some linden trees standing near, the branches 

 of which hung over the stand, and then dropped upon it from 

 the branches, doing just the same as their comrades do with 

 respect to food surrounded by water, when they drop upon it 

 from the ceiling of the room. In order to make this impos- 

 sible, the boughs were cut away. But once more the ants 

 were found in the stand, and closer investigation showed 

 that one of the bowls was dried up, and that a crowd of ants 

 had gathered in it. But they found themselves puzzled how to 

 go on with their robbery, for the leg did not, by chance, rest on 

 the bottom of the bowl, but was about half an inch from it. 

 The ants were seen rapidly touching each other with their 

 antennse, or carrying on a consultation, until at last a rathei 



