INSECT BEHAVIOR 299 



that at least gleams of intelligence appear in the most specialized Hy- 

 menoptera. 



Lack of Rationality. However intelligent the social Hymenoptera 

 may be in their way, they show no signs of the power of abstract reason- 

 ing. Even ants, according to the experiments of Lubbock, display 

 profound stupidity in the face of novel emergencies when they might 

 extricate themselves by abstract reasoning of the simplest kind. The 

 thoughts of an ant or bee seem to be limited to simple associations of 

 concrete things. Miss Enteman observed a Polistes worker which 

 gnawed a piece out of the side of a dead larva of its own kind and, turn- 

 ing, actually offered it as food to the mouth of the same larva. In an- 

 other instance a larva was attacked and killed, and then offered a piece 

 of its own body. 



Such examples as these emphasize the strength of the reflex factor in 

 the behavior of insects. Indeed, the basis of all behavior is being sought 

 in the reactions of protoplasm to external stimuli. Possibly even mem- 

 ory, consciousness and other attributes of intelligence will eventually be 

 reduced to this basis, improbable as it may now seem. 



