66 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON 
remarkable examples of instinct, which in very many 
cases closely borders upon reason. At the same time, it 
is as well to remember that very much—perhaps nearly 
all—of it is evidently the direct result of their habit of 
living in large communities, which, I think, they must 
have done from periods dating far back into the past. 
When ants are placed under unusual circumstances, they, 
like bees, show little or no capacity for successfully dealing 
with them. They are very timid creatures too, and there 
are many records of experiments by Sir John Lubbock 
and others, which bring this feature of their disposition 
very prominently into notice. It would probably be 
correct to say of ants that when they find themselves 
placed under conditions to which their ancestors for long 
periods back in the past have grown accustomed to deal 
successfully with, they may be expected to do the like. 
But in all strange circumstances they usually seem as if 
they de not know what to do. This, many persons would 
think, distinguishes instinct from reason. 
We may now pass on to consider a few points concerning 
the relationship between the habits of ants and the 
structure of plants, and as this subject does not seem to 
have attracted as much attention (or, at least, it does not 
seem to have been so much written about) as the facts 
previously noticed, I propose to take up the remainder of 
this Address for the consideration of its more salient features. 
The majority of flowering plants reproduce their kind 
in greater numbers of individuals likely to thrive if they 
are fertilised with pollen carried from some other plant 
ot the same species, than if that pollen is derived from 
flowers growing from the same root. In the long run, 
even a slight advantage gained in this way tells up and 
becomes of considerable importance. So it has come about 
in the course of very long ages that those plants which 
have best succeeded in obtaining cross-fertilisation have 
thriven better than those which have had to rely upon 
self-fertilisation, and have held their own under adverse 
circumstances which may even have led to the extermination 
of the less fortunate form. I shall, for the purpose at 
