54 2 A\rs. 



The second cla>> of accounts that arc supposed to demonstrate the 

 power of reasoning in ants cannot be adequately considered in this 

 place. It nuiM -ufrice to give examples of the many references to ants 

 dropping food from high places to other ants at a lower level, and to 

 ants them>elve- dropping from ceilings onto tables when they have 

 been prevented from climbing up for food. Of the former behavior 

 the following anecdote recorded by Romanes ("Animal Intelligence," 

 1892, p. 9<) i is an example: '' In Herr Gredler's monastery, one of the 

 monks had been accustomed to put food regularly on his window sill 

 for ants coming up from the garden. In consequence of Herr Gredler's 

 communications, he took it into his head to put the bait for the ants, 

 pounded sugar, in an old ink-stand, and hung this by a string to a 

 cross-piece of the window and left it hanging freely. A few ants were 

 in the bait. They soon found their way out over the string with the 

 grains of sugar and so their way back to their friends. Before long 

 a procession was arranged on the new road from the window sill 

 along the string to the spot where the sugar was, and so things went 

 on for two days, nothing fresh occurring. But one day the procession 

 stopped at the old feeding place on the window sill and took the food 

 thence without going up to the pendent sugar jar. Closer observation 

 revealed that about a dozen of the rogues in the jar above were busily 

 and unwearyingly carrying the grains of sugar to the edge of the pot 

 and throwing them over to their comrades down below." Turner 

 (1907^ ), who quotes this observation, attempts to explain the separation 

 of the continuous procession of workers into two cooperating com- 

 panies as due to the accidental falling of sugar heaped on the edge of 

 the jar. I am inclined to believe that the ants in the jar were burrowing 

 in the sugar and that they acted just as if the bottle were partially 

 filled with sand. Under such circumstances they would certainly carry 

 the excavated sand to the edge of the bottle and throw it down. I'.ut 

 this is mere supposition, and both in this and in similar cases which I 

 have met with in the literature, the data are insufficient to prove 

 rational cooperation. 



Of the many observations on ants dropping from ceilings in order 

 to reach food, I will cite only the following, which was made by a 

 young entomologist, Mr. E. S. G. Titus (1905) on the Argentine ant 

 (Iridomyrmex luniiilis) in New Orleans: "An experiment was tried 

 with some sugar syrups on a table which stood against the wall. The 

 ants came up the wall to reach the table. When it was removed from 

 the wall they came up the legs. Xext morning the legs were wrapped 

 with cloths soaked in coal-oil and the table removed some distance from 

 the wall. That day the ants were persistent in their efforts to reach 



