380 "Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



nest containing the colony was placed on a new island. At the 

 end opposite to that near which the nest was located was placed 

 a new stage from which a new mcline led to the island. On this 

 stage I placed a large number of pupae and workers. At once 

 the workers began to move about the stage with pupae in their 

 mouths. Many fell off the stage. Many of these gathered in 

 groups near the ditch; a few went to the nest. This experiment 

 was begun at a quarter past nine in the morning. Occasionally 

 a worker would partly descend the stage and then reascend. Up 

 to ten o'clock, when I was called away, no worker had passed from 

 the stage, down the incline to the nest. When I returned at half 

 past two o'clock, the pupae had been gathered into the center of 

 the stage and the ants were resting on them. From this time until 

 4:40 o'clock the stage was watched continuously but no change 

 occurred. When I returned at a few minutes before eight in the 

 evening, everything was as I had left it at twenty minutes to five. 

 I kept watch over these ants until ten minutes of ten without 

 noticing any change excepting an occasional movement by one of 

 them. Thus these ants were lost and remained so for at least 

 thirteen hours, although their home was less than two feet away. 

 When I returned next morning both ants and pupae were in the 

 nest, but how they got there I do not know. This result cannot 

 be attributed to timidity or fright, for previously the same colony 

 had been successfully used in seven experiments and each time 

 the pupae were taken home; but in each of those cases the ants 

 had been given an opportunity to become familiar with the 

 island. 



But the facility with which ants lose themselves is not the only 

 thing that fails to harmonize with the idea of a homing instinct; 

 for the windings and twistings of the paths of many ants militate 

 against that idea. Two summers ago, while in Elberton, Georgia, 

 I noticed a sinuous line of ants leading from a nest of Forelius mac- 

 cooki MacC. to a piece of honey-soaked paper and back. The 

 paper was only three feet from the nest and situated in a level yard 

 which was free from grass and weeds. The tortuous path the ants 

 were following was at least fifteen feet long; it went all the way 

 around the steps of the schoolhouse, although there were no topo- 

 graphical reasons why it should not have passed under the steps 

 direct to the nest. At that place the steps were high enough for 

 a boy to pass beneath them. Now had those ants possessed a 



