Animal Intelligence^). 



In an excellent paper on "Animal Intelligencc" (Nature, vol. XXVI. p. 523), 

 Mr. C. Lloyd IMorgan says that "The brüte has to be contented with the ex- 

 perience he inherits or individually acqiiires. Man, through language spoken or 

 written, profits by the expcrience of his fellows. Even the most savage tribe has 

 traditions extending back to the fathcr's father." May there not be, in social animals 

 also, traditions from generation to generation, certain habits prevailing in certain 

 communities in consequence neither of inhcrited instincts nor of individual ex- 

 perience, but simply because the young ones imitate what they see in their eider 

 fellows ? 



As is well known, the stinglcss honey-bees {Melipona and Trigona) build 

 horizontal combs consisting of a single layer of cells, which, if there is plenty of 

 Space, are of rather regulär shape, the peripher al cells being all at about the 

 same distance from the first built central one. Now, on February 4, 1874, I met 

 with a nest of a small Trigona ("Abelha preguigosa") in a very narrow hole of 

 an old canella-tree, where, from want of Space they were obliged to give to their 

 combs a very irregulär shape, corresponding to the transversal section of the 

 hole. These bees lived with me, in a spacious box, about a year (tili February 

 10, 1875), when perhaps not a single bee survived of those which had come from 

 the canella-tree; but notwithstanding they yet continued to build irregulär combs, 

 while quite regulär ones were built by several other communities of the same 

 species, which I have had. 



The following case is still more striking. In the construction of the combs 

 for the raising of the young, as well as of the large cells for guarding honey 

 and pollen, our Meliponce and TrigoncB do not use pure wax, but mix it with 

 various resinous and other substances, which give to the wax a peculiar colour 

 and smell. Now I had brought home from two different and distant localities 

 two communities of our most common Melipona (allied to M. marginata), of which 

 one had dark rcddish-brown, and the other pale yellowish-brown wax, they evi- 

 dently employing resin from different trces. They lived with me for many years, 

 and either Community continued, in their new home, to gather the same resins 

 as before, though now, when they stood close together, any tree was equally 

 accessible to the bees of either Community, This can hardly be attributed to 

 inherited instinct, as both belonged to the same species, nor to individual expe- 

 rience about the usefulness of the several resins (which seemed to serve equally 

 weil), but only, as far as I can judge, to tradition, each subsequent generation of 

 young bees following the habits of their eider sisters. 



Blumenau, Sa. Catharina, Brazil; November 14, 1882. 

 I) Nature 1882/83. Vol. XXVII. p. 240, 241. 



