Vol. VII. October, lyoj. No. 5 



BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN 



POWER OF RECOGNITION AMONG ANTS. 



ADELE M. FIELDE. 



WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS BY MR. J. G. HUBBARD AND 



DR. O. S. STRONG. 



When power of recognition is to be tested, appeal for evidence 

 of that power is properly made through the leading sense. We 

 should take evidence from the eagle through its sense of sight, 

 from the mole through its sense of hearing, from the caterpillar 

 through its sense of touch, from the ant through its sense of 

 smell. 



That ants have associative percepts which are independent of 

 their chemical sense, is proven by their behavior. Ants learn to 

 be unafraid of the light from which they instinctively withdraw their 

 young. 1 When ants are put into an artificial nest, some weeks 

 are required for their making acquaintance with their domicile, 

 but after such acquaintance has been perfected, they may be 

 transferred to a replica of their abode, whether it be a Petri cell, 

 a glass house, or a wooden box, and they will be wholly at ease 

 in it, and will quietly resume their accustomed routes over its 

 floors or withdraw into it from a strange environment, although 



o ^5 



it lacks their nest-aura. 



I divided a small colony of Camponotus Pennsylvanicus into 

 two sections. I fed and fondled the members of the one sec- 

 tion until they manifested a sense of safety in my presence, 

 would mount my finger and make a leisurely promenade upon 

 my hand or would return to me after an hour's wandering in my 

 room. These ants not only ceased from biting me when I took 

 them upon my hand, but became so tame that they would 



1 " Supplementary Notes on an Ant," A. M. Fielde, Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Xatural Sciences of Philadelpliia, September, 1903, p. 493. 



