496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 64 



In other situations, however, the animal is so much at the mercy 

 of circumstances that it cannot develop a specific routine solution. 

 This is nowhere more true than in a group activity, where the animal 

 faces not only the variation in conditions but also the unpredictable 

 and shifting behavior of its workmates. The tailor ant building 

 a leaf nest or the wood ant dragging its prey solve these problems 

 by changes in behavior which are not specifically related to the nature 

 of the difficulty. 



The success of this method is proved by the ability of tailor ants 

 to build a nest wdth all types of leaves from the stiff broad leaf of an 

 orange to the narrow flexible leaflet of a palm, and the ability of wood 

 ants to move all shapes and sizes of prey over all types of surfaces. 

 The undirected searching nature of their response to these conditions 

 gives an appearance of chaos to group activities. But it is the same 

 response which eventually finds a way through the difficulties. 



