ANTS GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 125 



their antennae ; but it did not occur to them to heap the earth 

 up a little, though if they had moved only half a dozen particles 

 of earth they would have secured for themselves direct access to 

 the food. This, however, never occurred to them. At length 

 they gave up all attempts to reach up to the glass, and went 

 round by the paper bridge. I left the arrangement for several 

 weeks, but they continued to go round by the long paper 

 bridge. 



Another and somewhat similar experiment consisted 

 in placing an upright stick A, supporting at an angle 

 another stick B, which nearly but not quite touched 

 the ground at C. At the end of the stick B there were 

 placed some larvae in a horizontal glass cell at D. Into 

 this cell were also placed a number of ants along with the 

 larvae. The drop from D to C was only an inch ; ' still, 

 though the ants reached over and showed a great anxiety 

 to take this short cut home, they none of them faced the 

 leap, but all went round by the sticks, a distance of nearly 

 7 feet.' Sir John then reduced the interruption to & of 

 an inch, so that the ants could even touch the glass cell 

 with their antennas ; yet all day long the ants continued 

 to go the long way round rather than face the drop. Next, 

 therefore, he took still longer sticks and tapes, and ar- 

 ranged them as before, only horizontally instead of verti- 

 cally. He also placed some fine earth under the glass 

 cell containing the larvae. The ants as before continued 

 to go the long way round (16 feet), though the drop 

 could not have hurt either themselves or the larvae, and 

 though even this drop might have been obviated by heap- 

 ing up the fine earth into a little mound ^ of an inch high, 

 so as to touch the glass cell. 



It is desirable, however, here to state that all - species 

 of ants do not show this aversion to allowing themselves 

 to drop through short distances ; for Moggridge describes 

 the harvesting ants of Europe as seeming rather to enjoy 

 acrobatic performances of this kind ; and the same fact is 

 recorded by Belt of the leaf-cutting ants of the Amazons. 

 Dr. Bastian, in his work on ' Brain as an Organ of Mind,' 

 suggests that the ' seeming lack of intelligence betrayed 

 by our English ants, from their disinclination to take a 

 small leap, may be due simply to their defective sight' 



