378 HALF HOURS WITH LN"SECTS. [Packakd. 



but when it wanted to get away, it could not for some time 

 find the means. It ran about the outside of the pot in per- 

 plexity ; but at last it found the way up the string to the 

 ceiling, along which it ran to the wall, and so to the ground. 

 It had scarcely been half an hour gone, when a numerous 

 swarm of ants came into the closet, climbed up the wall to 

 the ceiliug, and then descended by the string into the pot. 

 There they continued to eat till the treacle was all devoured, 

 each taking his departure when he was satisfied, and one 

 party running up the string and the other down." (Wat- 

 son's Reasoning Power in Animals.) 



There are other anecdotes on record more or less founded 

 on observation and experiment which confirm the prevalent 

 idea regarding this complicated mental process. Sir John 

 Lubbock has called in question in his "Observations on 

 Bees and Wasps" the statements made by other observers 

 that bees and wasps have this facult3^ He made a number 

 of experiments which "in opposition to the statements of 

 Huber and Dujardin, seem to show that wasps and bees do 

 not convey to one another information as to food which they 

 may have discovered." This does not necessarily oppose 

 the view, that these insects may communicate to one another 

 the presence of danger. In a later communication to the 

 Linnifian Society of London, as reported in " Nature," but 

 not yet published in full, Lubbock has recorded a number 

 of experiments on ants, " which certainly seemed to show 

 that, whatever may be the case with bees, ants do possess 

 the power of communicating detailed facts to one another." 

 How insects can exist in colonies without this power is a 

 pertinent question. 



That individual insects undergo a process of education 

 seems to be established from the fact that the social bees 

 can be domesticated. The honey bee is the only domestic 

 insect we have. Besides the AjjIs mellijica, the Apis clorsata, 

 A. inclica and A. nigrocincta, of India, and the Apis fasci- 



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