Turner, Homing of Ants. 387 



the stage. To one the section-hfter was a repellent stimulus, to 

 the other an attractive stimulus. Each had acquired a different 

 way of accomplishing the same purpose and each had retained 

 and utilized what it had gained by experience. 



Not only do ants retain, for at least a few hours, what they have 

 learned; but a habit once formed is hard to break. From time 

 to time I have performed experiments for the purpose of breaking 

 up habits. Often I have failed, my patience not being a match 

 for the persistence of the ant; in other cases, by patient persistence, 

 I have succeeded. I desire to relate one such case. 



A minute before ten on the morning of September 23, I placed 

 a Formica fusca var. subsericea Say, together with some pupae, on 

 a new cardboard stage, from which an incline led to the island. 

 For my purpose, it was necessary for the ant to learn the way down 

 and up the incline, but down the incline it would not go. After 

 passing by the incline several times, the ant passed underneath 

 the stage and down the bottle, which formed the central support 

 of the stage, to the island and thence to the nest. Hoping that it 

 would even now learn the way down the incline, I replaced the ant 

 on the stage. Six times it was replaced on the stage, six times it 

 went down the bottle. To those who believe that the movements 

 of ants are tropic responses to odors, it may be of interest to state 

 that each time the ant went down the bottle by a different path, 

 usually more or less spiral. Now the experiment contemplated 

 demanded that that ant learn the way either down or up the 

 incline. Knowing by experience that ants sometimes go out by 

 one path and return by another, I thought that possibly this ant 

 might learn the way up the incline. So when the ant came out 

 this time I let it alone. It made no attempt to ascend the incline, 

 but after a little meandering, it ascended the bottle to the stage 

 and descended the same way, with a pupa, to the island. 



In order to prevent further use of this path, I painted the neck 

 of the bottle with cedar oil and then replaced the ant on the stage. 



This was at half past ten in the morning. In a very short time 

 it learned to carry the pupae down the incline, but at first the ant 

 always went first to the bottle and then to the incline. It was not 

 until two o'clock in the afternoon that it learned to go down the 

 incline without first going to the bottle. And even after that it 

 would occasionally go to the bottle. To learn the way up was 

 even more difficult. Whenever the ant returned from the island 



