VI AN A CT OF SELF-IMMOLA TION B V ANTS 283 



mention Huber's observations on bees, many of which every 

 observant keeper of bees can personally confirm.-^ 



Forel comes to the conclusion, from his own observations 

 on ants, that they are capable of sacrificing themselves for 

 the general good, the highest ideal of conduct to which we 

 can require man himself to attain ; and if such conduct has 

 in animals become instinctive, the fact must cause us to 

 marvel the more at their mental and social life, and human 

 society must confess that it has scarcely advanced so far. 



The Countess ISTostiz, who died in Meran a few years 

 ago, accompanied her first husband, the entomologist Heifer, 

 in the journey to Asia described in the book Heifer's Reisen, 

 which she edited from his diaries. This extremely talented 

 woman, seldom at fault in the observation of nature, assured 

 me that she witnessed the following incident with her own 

 eyes : A train of ants in active migration arrived at the 

 bank of a brook which they wished to cross. The vanguard 

 examined at one or two places the part of the bank whence, 

 as the result showed, the crossing was to be made ; then a 

 number of the ants, holding fast to some stalks of grass on 

 the bank, went into the w^ater ; others mounted on those and 

 held on to them, and others held on to these, and so on; 

 so these ants drowned themselves and formed a bridge over 

 which the body of the army then passed over to the other 

 bank. It can only be concluded that these ants first care- 

 fully examined the breadth of the brook and the other con- 

 ditions, and thereupon determined to choose this method of 

 crossing. This may seem a rash conclusion, but only because 

 people in general, and many naturalists, immensely under- 

 estimate the mental faculties of animals, and therefore the 

 majority are always inclined to receive as fables the state- 



1 Forel, Les Fourmis de la Suisse, Bale, Geneve, Lyon, 1874 ; P. Huber, 

 Recherches sur les Mceurs des Fourmis indigenes, Paris, 1810 ; F. Huber, 

 Nouvelles Observations sur les AbeiUes, second edition, Paris, Geneve, 1814. 

 Cf. also the works of Lubbock. 



