i HAP. V.] COMMUNICATION AMONGS1 INSECTS. 51 



instinctive. It was sympathetic help, such as man only among the 

 higher mammalia shows. The excitement anil ardour with which 

 they carried on their unflagging exertions for the rescue of their 

 comrade could not have been greater if they had been human 

 beings, and this to meet a danger that can only be of the rarest 

 occurrence." . . . " I shall relate two more instances of the use of a 

 reasoning faculty in these ants. I once saw a wide column trying 

 to pass along a crumbling, nearly perpendicular, slope. They would 

 have got very slowlj over it. and man) of them would have fallen, 

 but a number having secured their hold, and reaching to each 

 other, remained stationary, and over them the main column passed. 

 Another time they were passing a water-course along a small 

 branch, not thicker than a goose-quill. They widened this 

 natural bridge to three times its width by a number of ants cling- 

 ing to it and to each other on each side, over which the column 

 passed three or four deep. Except for this expedient they would 

 have had to pass over in single file, and treble the time woidd 

 have been consumed. Can it not be contended that such insects 

 are able to determine by reasoning powers which is the best way 

 of doing a thing, and that their actions are guided by thought and 

 reflection ? This view is much strengthened by the fad that the 

 cerebral ganglia in ants are more developed than in any other 

 insect, and that in all the Hymenoptera, at the head of which they 

 stand, they are many times larger than in the less intelligent 

 orders, such as beetles." And on another occasion Belt states that 

 he found a colony of these ants shifting from an old to a new nest 

 to which they were carrying their stores of food. "Between the 

 old burrows and the new one was a steep slope. Instead of descend- 

 ing this with their burdens, they cast them down on the top of the 

 slope, whence they rolled down to the bottom, where another relaj 

 of labourers picked them up and carried them to the new burrow. 

 It was amusing to watch the ants hurrying out with bundles of 

 food, dropping them over the slope, and rushing back immediately 

 for more." And again. " I shall conclude this long account ol the 

 leaf-cutting ants with an instance of their reasoning powers. A 

 nest was made near one of our tramways, and to get to the trees 

 the ants had to cross the rails, over which the waggons were 

 continual 1) passing and repassing. Every time they came along 

 a number of ants were crushed to death. They persevered in cro 

 ing for several days, but at last set to work and tunnelled under- 

 neath each rail. One day. when the waggons were not running, 

 I si,,pped up the tunnels with stones ; but although great numbers 

 carrying leaves were thus cut off from the nest, they would nol 

 1 ross the rails, but set to work making fresh tunnels underneath 

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